Ep 8- The Rant

Welcome back to ClearCast. I'm your host, Tim Dukeman, with our producer, Martin, and of course, Pastor Dave. And today, we're going to talk about how to not wreck your life. As John MacArthur has famously observed, you're only living your best life now if you're going to hell. And so, Pastor Dave has some thoughts about how to avoid making shipwreck of your life. So, Pastor Dave. How does one avoid making sure to recover your life? What's something that you see a lot of young men doing? Like the theme of the season is things I wish I'd known in my 20s. What's something you see a lot of young men doing right now that we haven't already talked about? There's something I know that we've talked all around, a replacement for pastoral care. We've talked about pastoral care. We've talked about having people in your life. We've talked about work ethic.

But it seems like that part of what pastors deal with today is that there are a million different voices on the internet that are there to shepherd and pastor young men. And now we're one of those voices. We're one more internet voice. And I know Pastor Dave actually was kind of concerned that that's what it would turn into. We don't want this podcast to be that. But I've heard you talk a little bit about the manosphere. Do you have any opinions about that? Do I have any opinions about the manosphere? Just a few. Before I talk about that in particular, yeah, one of the things that makes pastoral ministry hard is the amount of voices that are competing for the attention and love and affection and money of your people. It actually makes it very hard to take care of people.

You might think of before the internet was real popular in the manosphere or whatever, you'd have your famous preachers and they'd have their radio show and they'd want your money and they'd write their books and they'd have their conferences. And really what was happening was they were pastoring from a distance anonymously, anonymous people. And I've heard, I mean, I can name a bunch of names of guys that would fit that description. You should name some names. I should name some names. The thing is, a lot of those guys, it's not, I mean, what do you despise guys that have a public platform? Not necessarily. But it does matter what they do with that public platform. And I think that the thing that's often either ignored or not, it's not given the proper weight that it should is that you're, that if people are listening to you, you're having an influence on your, on their life.

And it's very difficult and maybe even dangerous to do that at a great distance, especially if that influence ends up coming into competition or conflict with the actual pastors and elders that they have in their lives. Yeah, the thing about a lot of the online gurus that you're talking about is that they don't have any skin in the game. If the advice they give you blows up your life, that's no skin off their back. They have nothing. There's no stake in your life in the way that your pastor does. Yeah, that's right. And it's also true that if I'm supposed to compete with the great preachers of our day, the guys who are eloquent, the guys who are articulate, the guys who are fiery, I end up in the hearts and minds of the people. And I'm using myself. I mean, it's true of me, but I'm using myself just as...

the local pastor, I end up playing second fiddle to everybody. But I'm the one that comes to the hospital and marries you and baptizes you and serves you communion and prays with you and does all of those things. But if John MacArthur or John Piper or Doug Wilson or whomever has your ear and that they say, jump, and you say, how high, then... It makes my work a lot more difficult because the things that they're saying, while they may be good and true, may not be what you need to hear. And there is a reality to when you're ministering to people or trying to minister to people that you don't know, that your teaching has to become very generalized. It can't be real specific. When it gets really specific, it gets...

The chance for causing harm or being wrong go way up because you're now dealing with a set of, the person listening has a set of particular circumstances that the teacher has no knowledge of. And it's impossible for the teacher to know and to address every situation or every hearer's perception. That's not possible. And yet, if you're going to speak publicly, you are taking a level of responsibility for the people who listen to you. And so the carelessness with which men speak into other people's lives without having any real responsibility in their lives is destructive. Whether those men mean it to be destructive or not, I think can be very destructive. And the irony of all of it is here we sit doing a podcast speaking into your life. Right. And yet maybe the only thing that's different is my goal is whether it's different or not. My goal is.

not to become a competing voice with your pastor, but rather actually help you to be a better church member. If you're looking for a church in Indianapolis, then yes, come to our church. But if you're not in Indianapolis, if you're not looking for a church, then what I hope the result of our podcasts are is that we better equip you to be a better... congregant. Yeah, to be helpful. To be more helpful to your church. My goal is not to pull you or your affections out of your church, but rather to strengthen them and help you to build up and commit yourself to the work where God's placed you. You gave me a word of wisdom a few months ago and came over and talking to my wife and I, and I had floated this idea of appearing, asking to be on a certain podcast. Remember this conversation?

And your question was, why do you want people to listen to you? And it was the idea that the internet has created an appetite. There's like every young guy, we want people to listen to us. We want to have an audience. But the temptation is to take on an audience without recognizing the responsibility that comes along with that. without recognizing that someday we'll answer before God. And it's not always helpful. Just because people will listen to you doesn't mean that you deserve to be listened to or that you have something meaningful to say into their lives. And there's something irreplaceable about proximity. And the local church is the context in which God places his – God's plan for each one of us is to be part of a local church for every Christian. And it's the people in your church who know you, who know your sins, who know your weaknesses, who know your strengths, who are able to say to you things that you want to hear that build you up and strengthen you and encourage you, and things that you don't want to hear, but things that also build you up and strengthen you and help you to be more of what God wants you to be because they actually know you.

Yeah. And it's impossible to do that kind of stuff effectively, like anonymously or at a distance. I mean, in person is the best if you're going to have a hard conversation in real time on the phone is the next best. I mean, the idea that that people are going to walk with you through the ups and downs of life who don't know you or that they'd even have see that as part of their responsibility is not the way things go. I'm afraid with a lot of the. The online teachers, whether that's in the manosphere or the podcasting world, everyone's just trying to carve out their piece of the pie, their audience. And I think we should be working to build the kingdom of God and to build up God's people. If we're going to have a podcast and it's going to continue to go on, our goal will be to do the same types of things and say the same types of things on the podcast.

that we would say to one another in real life. And so you getting to listen in is, there's some stories that we share. There's a lot more that we don't share about what it's like for us to live life together and to be involved in each other's lives and to minister to each other and to confront each other and to pray for each other and encourage each other and all these types of things. What we found is that those things are essential and that you can't get them through. virtual relationships or worship services or pastors. However good and true the teaching might be, that man doesn't know you. I mentioned in an earlier podcast that it's not uncommon for people to feel closer to me as the pastor than I might feel to them in terms of familiarity. It's not that I don't feel close to the people, but they're much more comfortable with me than I might be with them.

That's even more the case, it's more pronounced when it's online. They're literally talking to people they have never met or ever seen and who maybe send them an email thanking them or asking them a question or what have you. But in terms of real life, you wouldn't be able to pick their wives out of a group. You wouldn't know any of their children's names. There would be just no mutual life shared together. And I'm afraid that the manosphere, the internet in general, just ends up being an attack on real relationships and the ability to learn to live with each other and walk through life together. So I get the impression that you think the manosphere is dangerous in a way that beyond just they might take your attention away from the local church or your local pastor. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the manosphere is simply not Christian.

And it's a shame that a lot of Christian men are going to unbelievers to figure out how to be men. Purportedly, that's what the manosphere and all of its different stripes is aiming to do, is to equip men who've never had fathers to teach them how to be men. And there's nothing explicitly Christian about it. There are Christians who could be described as being in the manosphere or trying to fill that void. But there are a lot of men who are not. And to think that you're going to be able to tell the difference between one and the other is, I don't find always be the case. The idea that any Christians would ever listen to anything Andrew Tate has to say and think that it's worthwhile is abominable to me. But there's plenty of Christian men who are like, well, I mean, I know all the sexual stuff and all the deviancy and all of the like, just absolute moral.

corruption that he represents. No, I don't pay attention to that. I just listen to. And I'm like, who in the world do you think you are? You think you can sort this out? I mean, he's a bad dude. You should run. Plugging your ears, you should run away from that guy. What is the... For a young man, I mean, we've talked about the place of the church in helping you to find a path of faithfulness. But when you're describing fatherless young men, like what's the first step? Where do you go from here? If the manosphere isn't the place to learn this kind of thing, like my initial response is just saying, I'm wondering if part of what you're saying is the internet is full of voices that tell you, okay, for example, another thing that's out there is multi-level marketing.

So there's plenty of people like, why are you working at Walmart? Why are you working at... Like, come join and you can make $1,000 a week working from home. You can make $2,000 per week working from home. Right. But the fact is, they're doing two things at the same time. They're, one thing, building themselves up in a way that's completely unrealistic. And they're also tearing down just typical, just normal Christian faithfulness. Do you see the same thing coming out in the Manosphere in the way it responds to what young men see in real life about masculinity and manhood. I mean, I understand there's problems. Like, I totally get that. But there's also the fact of the world that we live in, and sometimes faithfulness isn't as cool and sexy as we wish it was. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think we have to start with saying that the issue that the manosphere is seeking, the hole that they're wanting to plug with whatever they're plugging it with, is a real hole. It's real.

And I don't appreciate the bitterness directed at the church for its instruction and discipleship of men along the way always, because I don't think it's actually always true. But I also think that the church has failed in some ways to disciple men. And really, I mean, really to disciple women. But there's a failure across the board. But the question is, what are we going to do? Are we just going to give up on the Lord's church and go find our... our solution somewhere else, or are we going to work to reform and rebuild the church? In a lot of ways, the manosphere strikes me as the parachurch movement. Yeah. There was an observation that the church was failing in the area of outreach and evangelism. And so then a bunch of Christians got together and said, well, we're going to do this better than the church. We're going to go outside of the church and do the church's work for her. That worked well.

Well, I would argue some people who are listening would say, yeah, I came to faith through Crewe or a Billy Graham crusade or all these different things. And it really does track back way before Crewe to camp meetings. I mean, you really could trace this sort of thing all the way back to Finney and the Second Great Awakening. But we're not here for a history lesson. But it has deep roots. That what happens is we leave the church, we see a weakness in the church, and it's a real weakness. And what we do is say, well, we're going to solve that solution outside of the church. Yeah. And what I've observed through history and my own experience is that these things, they come and they go. The church remains, but these things, they come and they go. The parachurch ministry had its heyday. The megachurch movement had its heyday. It's in decline.

It's not what it used to be. And those who are still trying to get on board, and we're going to do it, and we're going to whip up the glory days again, are gone behind. Now what we've got largely is the church saying, what we need to do is we need to be a safe place. We need to be a place for victims. We need to learn about mental health. We need to be very sensitive. From and informed. Yeah. It's a very therapeutic gospel. God will fix your problems. He won't necessarily make you wealthier, but all of your mental problems, he's going to solve that. That's a lot of what churches are doing today.

In some ways, they're taking their orders from the world. The world says it's a problem. We go, okay. But the Christians see a weakness in the church, and they say, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give my energy, my gifts, and my talents to fix this problem or address this problem outside of the church. And the issue, you know, speaking personally, and this is something I've said before to people, and maybe it's offensive, and I don't mean it to be offensive, but by way of explaining, like, where I come from, if you want to talk about fatherlessness, I understand fatherlessness. I grew up without a dad. My mom never remarried. There were never men. The closest thing I had to a dad was I was a part of Big Brothers Big Sisters for a couple of years. And I had coaches once I got into high school. And that was as close as I got to ever having a father. And so I understand the hole that gets left and the things that you simply are not taught, you do not learn.

And how, you know, looking back, I can see like, oh, well, there were these huge deficiencies in my life. I didn't know it at the time. I also was going through that, you know, late teens, early 20s, 20 years ago, where victimhood and father hunger wasn't as, it wasn't on the lips of people as much. It was going on, but we hadn't really identified and put our fingers on it with such clarity as we have now. And so I think, okay. I came from all that stuff. And what I found was that God, through saving me, became a father to me and gave me fathers in the church. Maybe a story can help describe how this transition went for me. I'd never met my dad. He left when I was a baby. I ended up looking him up, trying to find him. I didn't know if he was alive or dead. I didn't know if he was back in Israel or here. I didn't know anything.

It just had been me and my mom. And I've gotten into my 20s, late 20s, early 30s, and I've never met my dad. I've got half a dozen kids or something, and I've never met him. And eventually one day, I remember the library I was sitting at, looking around, and I found this guy who had my same last name and grew up in Jerusalem. And I'm like, we're probably related. It's not exactly a common. It's not Smith. My last name is not Smith or Jones. And so I just emailed this dude. And he's a Nat Geo explorer I found out later. He'd been teaching at, I think, George Washington University. Spent half his time in Palestine, half his time in teaching here. And I just emailed him. I was like, hey, here's who I am. Here's what I know about my dad. Do you know him? And he ends up responding back, let me talk to my dad. Turns out this guy is my cousin.

Like his dad and my dad are brothers. I didn't know. We just had a similar last name. And so through all of that, I'm like, okay, well, I guess like I want to talk to my dad. And my dad, I didn't know where he was, if he was alive or dead. I'm like finding out, you know. And then I find out, no, he's, you know, he's here. He's in the States. You know, he's just over in the next state over. I didn't know. I didn't know that he went back and had six more kids. Because how would I know? He was gone. You know that. And so finally I reached out to my father and said, you know, I don't remember what exactly I said. I don't know if I sent him an email or what. I didn't call him. I must have sent him an email. And just explained myself and said, hey, I'd like to talk to you sometime. It's really awkward. It's really weird. Sure. And then no response and then no response. And eventually.

I'm getting the story wrong. Eventually my brother Muhammad, so it was like two kids younger than me, oldest son in my dad's family. Eventually he emailed me and was like, I understand you reached out to her. I didn't even know I had a brother, you know? And so he reaches out and he's explaining himself to me. Well, it turns out he never knew he had a brother. Like my dad had never told any of the younger siblings about me. And the only reason the older siblings know is because they like overheard mom and dad working through the problems that I represented. in their life. And so my dad decided he was going to tell his, all his younger siblings about our younger children about me, then have one of them reach out to me because of a language barrier and says, Hey, I'm your brother. And I'm like, Oh, you're my brother. You know? And it's like, well, what's the point of all, this is all so weird. I mean, this is a, this is a movie script, you know? And it's like, well, we're going to go meet. I would like to meet him. I found out he's just, you know, he's next state over. Why don't we're a few hours apart? Why don't we meet? I've never met you before, you know?

And you got to remember, he was never around. He threatened to take me. He was abusive toward my mom, trying to get, like, he did not want a child. And that's all I knew of him. And I had some pictures of him holding me as a very young infant and then just gone. Never paid child support, none of that. So there's all the reasons in the world to, like, hate the guy. Everyone would have been like, yeah, your life sucked, you know, your dad, this and that. And I'm like, okay, well, yeah, it was hard. It was really hard, actually, growing up the way we did. But I...

I wanted to go to him and it's like, why do I, I was asking myself, why do I want to meet this guy? Like, why do I want to talk to this dude? And I said, well, what I want to tell him is that God's taken care of me and given me fathers that have stood in his place and have done his work and that I'm not angry at him. And that's really all I wanted to tell him. And along the way I took him, uh, you know, I, you know, he's, he's Muslim. And so I didn't take him any pork, right. You know, but I took him some, um, venison from a deer I'd killed the year before. I took him some beef. I took him a picture album. All the pictures I had of him and me, I copied and put them in a picture album for him along with pictures of his grandkids because I didn't take my family with me. This is a really hard thing to go do because all the fatherlessness and all the sediments just getting stirred up of life. Sure. But what did I want to say to him except that

God provided in your absence, and I'm not angry at you. And I think that's a lesson or the place where a lot of guys who don't have fathers need to get to. And I don't think the men in the manosphere are going to take you there. What took me there was men in the local church who loved me and took me under their wing and said, you're not blood, but I'm going to treat you like blood because we're Christians. And I'm going to be your dad, and I'm going to teach you things somebody should have taught you a decade or more ago, but you need to learn.

And so my heart is for the church doing that work. And I realize a lot of churches don't do that work. They're not equipped to do it. They're not willing to do it. There's lots of reasons. But I'm left being like, when Jesus asked Peter, are you going to leave me too? I feel like replacing Jesus with the church and being like, are you going to leave the church too? Where else are you going to go? Do you really think you're going to find this help somewhere else? You're not like some guy on the internet who doesn't know you. is not going to be able to fill that hole for you. God has to fill that hole. There's a real lack. And the fathers in the church are the ones who are supposed to do that work. And so I was the recipient of it. I really appreciated it. It changed my life. And so that's my desire to be able to do for other men around, because I see it. I see men who grew up, in some ways, I've actually thought that growing up without a father at all was less traumatic than growing up with some of the things I've heard.

other men dealing with at with fathers wow whose fathers were destructive right who were harmful who were in and out who were abusive who did who did things like it's like there was just a big gaping hole in my life but it was always there i never knew it i never felt a real sense of loss yeah but some of these people some um many people that's not their experience they've actually uh feel a lot more trauma from their loss than than i did nevertheless You know, it's like wherever we start from, where do we need to get to? We need to get to the place where God is our father. He's given us his son and his son's bride, the church, to shepherd our souls and to care for us and to usher us into heaven and to guard us and teach us and discipline us and all those sorts of things. And so when I think if that's what we need, if we were going to the doctor and the doctor says, that's the need. And then I look at the manosphere and I'm like, they can't. How in the world?

Best well-intentioned man. Christian man in the Manosphere, how could he meet that need with a stranger? He can't. But most of the Manosphere is not even filled with that guy. It's filled with Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson. And they're not even Christians. And we're going to learn manhood from unbelievers. And it's not that everything they say is wrong or that they've never been helpful to anybody. But there are huge missing parts. to their worldview and the way that they understand their existence that are essential for a Christian. They don't understand that God is their father. It's a theoretical concept to them. And I don't know how you can make real progress in manhood or husbandry or fatherhood if you don't first get that God is your father and that you are what you are and who you are and are bound to what he's made you because he made you. And those guys just never tell you that.

So why can't we just chew the meat and spit out the bones? I mean, obviously, there's going to be some worldview divides with especially the unbelievers, but there are some Christians in the Manosphere. Why can't this be the kind of thing that we follow some of these guys in the same way we would read a book? How is this different? Well, I'd say there's a lot of books you probably would be better off not reading as well. they don't have any investment in your life. You say, well, chew the meat and spit the bones. And the fact is, you're going to have to chew the meat and spit the bones with me as your pastor. And so with somebody who has no personal investment in you, I just think you're asking more of them, expecting more of them than they're ever going to be able to provide you. So you're either just going to overlook their weaknesses, their failures, their faults, or you're going to emulate them.

You're just going to take them on. And so, I mean, part of me wants to say to like lower the pressure a little bit to say like the manosphere could be supplemental help, but you really need to make sure that the church is your first priority and you need to make sure you have these relationships. Like, but I just, you know, just kind of try to thread the needle through all of the tension. And I just want to say like, you need to love the church and you need to find men who know you to disciple you. And the same thing, I would say the same thing to women. You need to find women who know you and who are willing to tell you about your, Attire, your conduct, your priorities. They need to know who you are. You need to be at their house. You need to serve them and love them and squeeze out of them every bit of motherhood and fatherhood you can get. And if after doing all of that, you still find that there's a lack, then maybe there's a place for some good book or good podcast or Manosphere thing.

But what I've found with men when they come into our church and it's like, how do you talk about your own church? Like our church is the best dude. It's like, what am I supposed to say? Our church is a terrible place where we do everything poorly. Like, I mean, we do, we screw a lot of stuff up, but we, we try, we really try. And what I found with regard to the manosphere is that the men who come in, who've been a part of that, once they come in, if they will build actual relationships. And there is a real danger in the fact that the reason men go into the manosphere is because they actually don't want real relationships. I remember meeting with a guy one time. He just said that he had just moved to town. And he was all down on the church and how the church had just let him down. He basically had a Tinder addiction. Oh, wow. And so he quit his job. He moved states, ended up here because he had some high school friend that lived in Indianapolis.

And came here. And his friend says, hey, why didn't you come to my church? This guy was all into the manosphere and all into this stuff. And he'd had a really rough life, been hurt. There was real trauma. And I told him, I said, here's the thing, man. The question is not whether we can help you. The question is whether you'll actually allow us to help you. Whether you'll actually engage or whether you'll just continue to sit on the sidelines, cherry pick out the advice that you think is good. All the while, rekindling your tinder addiction in a new city and sadly that's what he did and i met with so it was it's sad it's like he didn't want like he they want there's there's there's a there's a sense in which we blame our fathers and they didn't do this but in the end it's like even when good things are given to you you say no we often don't want them that's not i don't i'm not i'm not down for that so so what would you say to the person who says okay

Your church sounds great, but I don't live in Indianapolis. And the stuff that the Manosphere says, the stuff that they're right about, I don't see any church anywhere near me that gets those things right. What do you say to that person? You have to have more information before I know what to say to them. Because it could be that that person's just a cynic. Or it could be that they're in a spiritually dead place. So you could say anything from stop being a cynic to pack your bags and move. Or a whole host of other things in between. I don't know what I would, you know, there's not a one size fits all. So email us. Do that. Yeah. So email us your questions. No. I mean, they're difficult and it's case specific. But when I found, I remember talking to a guy one time who was really down on a church. He was like, he was very big into the manosphere. He was very down on his former church. And it sounded to me, even to listen to him complain about his church, it sounded to me like they did him some good.

That he was engaged to this girl and it wasn't a good pair for the two of them. And through the counseling that he and his fiance went through, they ended up breaking up. And it was because of the involvement of the church. Well, what he wanted was the church to protect him from the pain of a broken engagement. But what the church did was save him from the pain of a broken marriage. Right. But he wasn't satisfied. Right. I don't know the church he goes to. I don't know those men. I'm sure they failed. Maybe they should have done more. Maybe they could have done more. Inevitably. Sure. Right? But I'm like, I think they did something and I think you should be grateful because if they hadn't done what they did, you might be divorced right now. Yeah. And you could be in a lot worse situation. And so the church is full of sinful men. I mean, Calvin said that to humble us, God sent us men to be our pastors and to be our preachers. Sinful men.

And he could have sent us angels. He could have sent us angelic beings who had no sin to come and speak to us the truth of God. But he gave us sinful men with feet of clay to come and preach to us. And so if the church is supposed to be perfect, then there won't ever be a perfect church. And if there is a perfect church, as soon as that person who's so down on the church shows up, it won't be perfect anymore. That's what Bonhoeffer said in Life Together about people who have too high of expectations for the church. He said, if even you want a perfect church, the problem is if you ever showed up at it, it would no longer be perfect because you're not perfect. And so there needs to be a lot of humility in dealing with people and their fatherhood and their leadership with your pastors and your elders. They're not perfect men and you're not a perfect person, but they can be helpful. And I'm not nearly as, I don't believe the press about,

the church in America as much as the media or the manosphere would have you believe. Elite churches, big mega churches, those who are trying to have a name for themselves, yeah, perhaps. But I think there's a lot of small churches, a lot of insignificant churches, a lot of pastors you've never heard of who don't have a podcast or a following or anything like that, who are doing good work in the lives of their people, while theologically, they may not be reformed. And they may not be Presbyterian or Baptist, or they may not have a call to confession, and they may not, you know, they might sing old Gaitherd music, or they might have weird rules about this or that or the other, but... I think the devil's advocate would say, well, but most of those churches are teaching the completely broken model of servant leadership. And the Manosphere is a great corrective for that. That remains to be seen.

Whether it's a good corrective at all. Yeah. I mean, the manosphere, the manosphere is cheek by jaw with red pill and with MGTOW. And those things are from hell. Those are bad, bad things. Like red pill is not something that you should be like toying with. MGTOW is not going to get you where you need to go as a Christian. Yeah. MGTOW seems pretty obvious to me because it's a base. It's basically a, a straight refutation of the idea that it's not good for man to be alone. Why do you say red pill so bad? I mean, what is red pill? It's, it's kind of hard. It's, it's, it's pretty broad in terms of what it is, but I tend to think that the things that place the responsibility for the difficulties in your life on other people is not doing you very much good. Like if, if you, if you get in a car accident today and you break both your legs and you can never walk again, like you being upset about that the rest of your life is not going to be good for you.

I need you to be able to accept that. I need you to move on. And with the limitations, with lots of grace for the difficulty in the process of coming to terms with it. But people who would just say, well, you're just a victim and nothing more can be expected of you because this bad thing happens to you. I don't think in the long run they're going to do you any good. And the guy down the hallway at the rehab center with two broken legs as well, who's telling you every day that you're just giving in to your broken leg syndrome and you're just allowing yourself to be victimized and you should be red-pilled like him and you should be angry about the fact that your legs are broken and that society's failed you in this way. There's a good chance his life is going to be miserable forever. And when you move on and have the best life that you can pull together of fulfilling meaningful life,

with the reality of what you're facing, you're going to be in a much better position 10 years down the road than he ever will be. Yeah. And so it's not that I don't want there to be sympathy for suffering, for sorrow, for abuse. I'm not arguing for any of that stuff. I'm not trying to minimize fatherlessness and be like, well, it's no big deal. You just need to suck it up and figure it out. There's a real problem. The question is really how best do we address it? Sure. And I think it's best addressed with the gospel that teaches us that we have a father in heaven who loves us and cares for us and who sent his son to save us and has gone to prepare a place for us. And that whatever sorrows and difficulties we have in this life will fade away. And even if those difficulties in this life attend us our whole life and end up being the things that kill us and take our lives, that God will not be our debtor when we stand before him.

If we've loved them. And I don't hear Red Pill men saying that to the people that are listening to them. I think they've got strategies about how to improve your life and how to feel a little better or gain a little more influence or build a little wealth or get a little more action in the bedroom, depending on who you're talking to. They've got a lot of advice about that kind of stuff, how to give your life some meaning in those ways. But that stuff's temporary. And a lot of it's sinful. I think the church has a unique answer to that. However poorly we've done at answering that call of fatherlessness, I don't think anyone else has a better answer. Yeah, there is a reason that so many of the guys who get into the red pill type movements end up taking what they call the black pill, where they just have, it's just hopelessness and despair. Yeah. Yeah, and so what do you say to them?

Christian in Pilgrim's Progress ran away from the city of destruction. Life, life, eternal life, screaming, you know, that's our message to every single person is that there's life in Jesus Christ. There's no life in the manosphere. Maybe there's Christians in there. Maybe there's some helpful life hacks. Maybe you need to be told to clean your room and maybe you need to be taught how to change your tire or you need to be taught really practical life skills. Yes, sure. But there are men in the church who can teach you those things if you'll go ask them. And I think a lot of young men. Sounds humbling. Yeah. Well, we talked in a previous episode about this entitlement mentality with regard to finances. I think that the fact is becoming a man and being a man is really stinking hard. It's really stinking hard. And it's make you want to quit hard. And those difficulties are given to us to grow our faith, to make us depend on the Lord more.

And show us our weaknesses to build us up in the faith. And what I find is a lot of young men who are good at talking, but not so good at doing when it comes to hard stuff. They can know a lot of the right things to do. In theory, they think they know. But when it comes to actually doing it or sticking with it, they run out of steam pretty quickly. And so they need a father to come and say, no, you can't quit. You have to keep going. God's in heaven. You can't quit this work. Well, I can't. I can't. Yes, well, you have to. What else are you going to say to a husband when he's tired of his wife? No, no good marriage has that temptation. Okay. You have the good marriages then because the ones that I'm around have those temptations from time to time. Faithful Christians who are just like, Satan has tempted me to the point of wanting to throw in the towel.

Like I've often said in our church, like Satan's aim is not to make your life miserable and then leave you alone. It's to make you want to quit. Like the pressure will always mount up to the point where you say, I'm going to quit. I'm going to quit. And what we need are godly men and Titus II women around us to say, you cannot quit. And God's faithful. And he's going to give you perseverance. And I'm here with you and you're not alone. And let's go kill the dragon together. We need to get into counseling or you need to do this. Oftentimes what you end up telling people who are completely exhausted is there's this thing you haven't been doing and that's been contributing to your exhaustion and your misery. And that's actually what we need to work on. So while you feel like you have no more energy or strength or will to do anything, we actually need to do this other new thing that's going to feel even harder than everything you've been doing before. But then once you do it, they're like, oh, relief and peace and comfort and freedom.

And so that's the message of the church. That's the message of the gospel. That's just not the message of the Manosphere.