00:05:34.300I don't know if they were intimidated, but they were definitely watching.0.78
00:05:37.120They were watching partly because I lifted in blueberry-colored Nike basketball shoes, ill-fitting sweatpants, and I just looked ridiculous every morning.0.65
00:05:52.400What I want to know is why this season of the King's Hall, I'm being forced to watch every YouTube clip that is capable of making a grown man cry.
00:16:24.660So we had a generation there where I think a lot of it lands on baby boomer pastors who
00:16:31.760were, you know, they had pulpits. They were the senior pastors, teaching pastors. They had grown
00:16:36.920churches, pastored them for a long time. And they were coming to this critical time when what they
00:16:41.900needed to do was raise up young men. Pass the torch. Pass the torch. Give them opportunities
00:16:47.780for preaching. Give them real meaningful training. Say there's a succession plan in place. I'm not
00:16:51.860going to be the senior pastor into my 80s because most of the time that's a bad idea. I'm actually
00:16:57.120going to pass the torch. I'm going to become a coach, a father, a mentor, and give you
00:17:01.120a shot. And instead what happened was a huge number of these competent young men were basically
00:17:07.100told, well, I'm sorry till I die, youth pastor's the ceiling. You might be able to be a $20,000
00:17:14.340a year youth pastor. And a lot of these guys, they went out and they said, like, what is
00:17:19.240there another way? And then they found fathers. They found Mark Driscoll's and Matt Chandler's
00:17:23.440And they found fathers who would empower them.
00:17:25.500And they said, young men, go plant churches.
00:17:27.860And to me, that's the demographic story underneath the whole Acts 29.
00:17:34.440And that church planting wave that we saw is really about a failure of the point that we're talking about today,
00:17:40.840of properly being in the corner of your children in all aspects of fatherhood, including church fatherhood.
00:17:48.640And you see what happens when that fails.
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00:18:32.300Yeah, that's really interesting, especially Brian. I was thinking about the father type.
00:18:36.740So I want to draw this together with a father type, and this is going to be King David. So
00:18:41.940he's sort of a, oh, I don't know what you would call him, a Christian nationalist father in this
00:18:47.740case. Yes, I worked that in. So 1 Samuel 22, we find a picture, I think, of where many men are
00:18:55.820today. And this is also something about the movement, as we think about movements in the
00:19:02.040church, but in culture as well. You find, I think, guys in the passage who are disaffected, and we'll
00:19:08.120read that in just a second. They feel like no one is in their corner, and so they're going to gather
00:19:13.040around David, who is a man in their corner, and these men become the mighty men. So sort of a
00:19:19.200powerful story. This is 1 Samuel 22 and verse 22. It says this, David departed from there and escaped
00:19:26.720to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down
00:19:31.620there to him. And everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was
00:19:37.340bitter in soul gathered to him. And he became the commander over them. And there were with him
00:19:42.880about 400 men. So it's first, first of all, interesting guys, you look at the kind of men
00:19:49.180that were gathered to David. Do you think this is an accurate description of the kind of men
00:19:55.760who are out in the world today, even in the church? And you think about the descriptions
00:20:02.320that are used, they're in distress, you have people who are in debt, you have people who
00:20:06.340are bitter in soul. Do you see that as accurate today? I mean, there's just absolute waves of
00:20:12.160these kind of men, bitter in soul, everyone in debt, everyone is in distress. I mean,
00:20:18.680in many ways, this could unfortunately describe a massive portion of the 30 and under men
00:20:25.760in our nation. I mean, they're broke. They have far less wealth than their parents at that age.
00:20:32.660They don't see a meaningful path forward to some of the normal markers of becoming
00:20:39.720truly adult members of society, marriage, childbearing, having a house, your own place,
00:20:47.900a lot of them see those as insurmountable obstacles. They're stuck in endless loops of
00:20:52.180dating and sleeping around, casual sex, all of the failures of fatherhood in the sexual revolution,
00:20:58.980bearing fruit there, our monetary policy enslaving them. And so a lot of them are just,
00:21:03.740They're either giving up, they're disaffected, or they're miserable and don't know why. I mean, I think it's crazy how accurate that description is.
00:21:15.580You know, even looking at the nature of the work that's available for most younger men, it instead of, you know, we look at factory work and turn our noses up at it, you know, and it is a form of slavery.0.87
00:21:28.340I'm not saying that it's ideal, but at least in a factory you were building something.0.60
00:21:32.340Now you're either in a cubicle or you're working from home in your pajamas and don't have to get dressed for a week and you're doing something that's probably pretty worthless.1.00
00:21:43.120Probably working for a lady HR rep who is insufferable.1.00
00:21:47.820Continually sending trainings your way.1.00
00:23:42.940He's also very honorable, which is something that when you're probably disillusioned with the world around you and you don't feel like there's hope and you're a slave to debt, to work, you're bitter.
00:23:56.560And there's somebody that looks like they have it together, that they've risen above the slums, above the fray of this world.
00:24:12.360David was like a national celebrity at that point, the women singing his praises.
00:24:17.420And he was a national celebrity as that.
00:24:20.080He was a national celebrity as the honorable warrior who could soothe the king with his music.
00:24:27.260And I mean, he was like this, in their eyes, probably this omnicompetent man.
00:24:31.680Obviously inflamed the jealousy of Saul demonically because of all of these things.
00:24:36.680But I think David had shown that he wasn't the kind of egomaniac that was like he had to be worshipped.
00:24:46.040No. David cheerfully served Saul that whole time. I mean, he cheerfully served Saul. He knew how to be the second in command. He knew how to be the sun figure. And so they see him. But I think also another element that's important to note in this passage is that when you think about the features of the men who were disaffected, who gathered to him, they were in distress, they were in debt, they were bitter in soul.
00:25:09.320So a lot of these describe in many ways, for better or for worse, failures of Saul's leadership, because the ideal king, obviously Christ is the ideal king, but the ideal king is a father to the nation, and he rules such that everybody is at peace with God, at peace with one another.
00:26:25.880They were just looking for the right leadership.
00:26:28.100So as we think about as fathers, just to give practical encouragement here,
00:26:34.400how do you, in any leadership position,
00:26:37.620how do you get in these men's corners in a way that is positive?
00:26:41.720Because I think we'll ask this question in just a moment,
00:26:45.140but there can be bad ways that people build these coalitions as well,
00:26:50.380gathering all the disaffected men, inflaming them in despair, whereas we're saying, no,
00:26:56.560there's actually a leadership opportunity. But how do you practically, Brian, how do you do that?
00:27:01.380How do you win their hearts? How do you be in their corner in a good way?
00:27:05.220So part of it was that I think in David, they found a mission and a leader who would send them
00:27:11.860out and bring them back. I mean, he was the kind of guy that was going to give them purpose. These
00:27:17.660are men who they're disaffected in society. And David was saying, let me give you a reason for
00:27:23.900existing. Let me give you a reason to use your strength. Let me give you a cause to fight for.
00:27:30.900And David was going to be their leader. And I think when we're thinking about, again, this
00:27:37.040critical point of being in the corner of your children and being a father who's in the corner
00:27:44.360of your sons and of your daughters. In many ways, that's what we're talking about, is being the kind
00:27:50.180of man who understands the world, understands his own mission, understands what people are for,
00:27:55.880what men are for, what women are for. And so you have a mission that you can bring your children
00:28:01.780into and increasingly give them responsibility in a purpose for being so that their days and
00:28:10.280their strength aren't just meaning meaninglessly wasted wandering about disaffected and troubled
00:28:14.620in soul i think that's that has to be a huge part of this story is giving them i mean these guys are
00:28:21.300like swords he's giving them a you know something that that was their arrows he's giving them
00:28:26.780something to shoot yeah no i think it's a great point so it's changing my metaphor i would say
00:28:30.040there's fundamentally two things number one you have to see the problem and be willing to speak
00:28:35.140to the real problems those men are facing yeah i think that you mentioned boomer pastors kind of
00:28:40.380that that whole era of the pastorate i think one of the problems is this punching down at men and
00:28:47.380then saying basically refusing to see the problems of the world they're facing so that's kind of
00:28:52.740number one and then two like mission i think again dan you would probably agree at the king's hall
00:28:57.940we're trying to say like hey we see the same problems you guys do we'll do some analysis of
00:29:03.860a problem. But fundamentally, we're going to call you to a mission. It's not despair. I think about
00:29:10.000some of the men going their own way, the quote unquote red pill movement. A lot of those guys
00:29:16.380right now are like, yeah, you know what? The system is rigged against you and there's problems
00:29:20.080with women. So you should just have sex with as many of them as you can. I've seen guys online1.00
00:29:25.820advocating, don't get married, use women for surrogacy. Oh yeah. Yeah. The black pill. Yeah.
00:29:31.140complete black pill. So would you agree with what Brian's saying, just this importance of giving
00:29:37.140this righteous mission for men? Yeah, because being in their corner. Absolutely. The issues
00:29:43.960that you get with something like a black pill movement is that you have the first part where1.00
00:29:48.140you speak to the problems because those guys are actually really good at that. Oh yeah. Like the1.00
00:29:52.040whole system is rigged against you and here are all the ways, even in ways that you didn't even
00:29:56.360realize you know it's actually much worse and then the solutions that they offer though are
00:30:01.780actually empty and will cause more problems yeah and there's there's really no satisfaction in them
00:30:08.600ultimately it leads to death what's really interesting is you fast forward a number of
00:30:14.500years in david's life in david's kingdom he kind of it seems like falls asleep on the throne a
00:30:20.600little bit there's good times you have another generation of young men who are disaffected
00:30:26.620who have no place and it says that absalom takes counsel with them at the gate and he kind of
00:30:33.040feeds this is not coming in their corner in a positive way but he feeds their discontent yep
00:30:37.640and he wins and steals their hearts but now what he's doing is let's revolt against god's order
00:30:43.300the king i think the black pill fundamentally it takes people to this place of let's just reject
00:30:50.020everything let's kind of be anarchists we'll be agents of chaos and destructive forces in society
00:30:56.160so what would you say to guys it seems like you have to really be on guard against who are the0.74
00:31:03.100absaloms yes and avoiding them so even saying to the young men don't fall for the absalom yeah
00:31:09.260like you need to be able to say jeff younger is such a good example of this on both sides on the0.94
00:31:14.980Absolute, like, clinical, brilliant articulation of the problems where I've almost never met somebody who is more intelligent, more capable of describing to the bottom everything that is wicked about, for example, the Texas justice court system, where his son, you know, essentially, we've talked about him before, is being legally allowed, you know, to transition by his mother.
00:31:39.580Father's not, is prevented from doing anything about it.
00:31:52.100Yeah, the absolute raw deal that men get in the courts when it comes to basically like you can marry a woman, be absolutely faithful to your vows that you made to her.
00:32:03.060Provide, build a house, have children with her and have her leave and steal half your income for the next 20 plus years and your children and the state will enforce it.
00:32:12.120And they'll say, yeah, yeah, this is good.
00:32:13.860So the state is absolutely stacked against you. I mean, disaffected, 400 disaffected men come to David. You could probably find 400,000 or more in America today who have had this kind of story play out to them. And meanwhile, the media is absolutely telling men that they're the problem, completely worshiping women and saying women don't sin.
00:32:35.560This is the cultural narrative that we've talked about many times here on the King's Hall, and you've talked about on the Hard Men podcast.
00:32:41.800So Jeff Younger is a guy, a great example of a guy who absolutely understands the problems.
00:32:46.200But then if you listen to some of his solutions on Twitter and et cetera, a lot of what you referenced, it's like don't get married essentially because it's such a bad deal.
00:36:53.700A boomer that doesn't understand the times or the problems that are being faced is like you going out and you're fighting and you're losing the fight.
00:37:01.300and you come back to the corner and the boomer is like, yeah,
00:37:05.800that uppercut is really wicked, his left uppercut.
00:37:09.420So when he goes to punch you, dodge right.
00:37:13.500But the thing is, is it's actually the right hook.
00:40:38.720And so very practically, like we're, we're talking in a lot of pictures, but very practically,
00:40:44.120I mean, think about this maybe in this way. A lot of our listeners are young men. A lot of our
00:40:51.320listeners are men whose houses are filled with young children or are about to be in that stage
00:40:57.300or somewhere around there. And so for us, a ditch that we could fall in is, you know, some of you
00:41:03.240had terrible fathers who weren't in your corners or there's lots of failure, would just be to pick
00:41:06.980at that scab and pick at that scab and pick at that scab. That's not the point of this episode.
00:41:11.960The point of this episode is for you to think, okay, practically, what are some things that I could give to my children to say, all right, I'm going to identify that one of the problems of maybe the boomer generation was saying, I'm going to teach you self-reliance by kicking you out at 18 and basically saying, I did it, you go do it.0.93
00:41:32.260Not recognizing any of the differences in socioeconomic system or the way, you know, the fruit, the stage in the reaping and sowing of sin that our nation was in.0.87
00:41:41.160So instead of doing that, it means right now, men, we need to be thinking, all right, housing sucks.
00:41:48.200How can I be building an empire in my city so that my children will never have to worry about whether or not they're going to be able to start their family in a house?
00:41:56.440Not because I'm just going to be the trust fund kids who get handed everything.
00:42:01.760But how can I make sure, even if it's meager, even if it's like this was the best that I could do,
00:42:07.120that I can say, son, you're going to take over our house that we've paid off.
00:42:13.420And we're going to live out in the little ADU in the back, and we're going to help you with the kid.
00:42:17.340I mean, this is not how a lot of parents are thinking right now in that baby boomer generation.
00:42:21.820The way that we get in our kids' corner is by practically equipping them and thinking, how can I store up to hand down and make that transition to where my kids know what's happening, too?
00:42:35.040And they know, like, son, I'm getting out of the front lines in a lot of ways.
00:42:59.620The thing is, what's great about the trainer in a boxing ring is that he doesn't actually get punched most of the time unless it's in a movie, a really good movie.
00:43:32.680Lexi and I did an episode of Breithearth recently on grandparents, and we were thinking specifically about how our own parents, some of the ways that they've won at this, that they've done a good job.
00:43:43.160I think of my dad, who's, especially in the last, I think, you know, as he's coming to his own retirement age and about to have his second retirement, retired from the military.
00:43:53.840Now he's going to retire from his post-military career.
00:43:57.360And there have been a lot of times in the last year where he's just said, hey, I'm taking the two boys or I'm taking the little girls along with my sister's little girls.
00:44:06.660well. And he'll, I mean, everything from, we're going to get tea with the little girls with
00:44:10.980grandpa, or we're going to go ride motorized vehicles irresponsibly. Right. And that simple
00:44:18.680act tells me that my dad is in my corner because he wants my children to have the kind of investment.
00:44:25.900He knows I'm in the thick of it. I'm working every day. I'm like, you know, I'm in that stage
00:44:31.260of life where you work, like you, you get stuff done. You have probably, I'm early in all of my
00:44:35.480careers, you know, and he's at this mature place of his career where now he can turn
00:44:40.100downstream and say, I've got the time on a Tuesday morning during spring break to say,
00:44:44.520I'm taking the boys, not asking for like, I mean, the relationship is good, but this
00:49:11.300And you feel like you have good excuses because you have all these young kids in your house, and work is hard, and it's a temptation.
00:49:18.300But that is also the thing that you start to – you notice it by its absence in a culture when this kind of wise mothering and wise fathering isn't present.
00:49:27.200People get solidified in the most common archetypes of foolishness you could ever imagine.0.94
00:49:32.760Everyone gets lived out over and over, the loud foolish woman, the passive or angry or explosive or sexually perverted man.0.98
00:49:39.280Like they just, people will fall to type, to the sinful type or perversion of their sex or their situation or their stage of life.0.68
00:49:49.060And so our culture, you know that what we're describing isn't happening because of what is happening.
00:49:58.320Yeah, in a culture that is ruled by peers and not by a mentor, mentee, whatever relationship, you get things like, you know, celebrating the fact that mom got out of bed and put on clothes.0.99
00:50:25.800It's really fatherly, motherly advice to children.
00:50:29.040And you notice how it's just ongoing all the time.
00:50:31.860So to a point Dan made earlier, it requires actual presence and proximity.
00:50:36.860So I think one thing that we have to do is say, you know, and like, Dan, your parents, it's great that they're here.
00:50:42.500You can't really parent even your adult children.
00:50:46.620You can't help them if you don't see it, you're not there, you're not in the midst of it.
00:50:50.900And so I think to encourage a lot of older people, it means that you can't just be like, oh, you know, because I've heard this a lot where people are like, oh, you know, being around grandkids or whatever is really hard for me.
00:51:04.040It is actually a lot easier to be at Hilton Head.
00:51:14.580We need to actually be near each other, and then you're going to have to work out a lot of issues too, peacemaking.
00:51:19.640Our goal as men and women shouldn't be to grow to the point where we have total ease, partly for our own souls, because that's bad. That's terrible for your soul to have total ease. Our goal should be in ways appropriate to our stage of life and place, to be pouring our strength out, what strengths we have, what resources we have for the sake of our Lord and our people, and doing that till we die.
00:51:46.100And in that is satisfaction because we can't forget that our lives are described as a war right now.
00:51:54.720We're headed for eternity with our Lord, right?
00:52:07.880I'm just at the front in different ways.
00:52:09.420Maybe I'm not the young man anymore, but our goal should be how can I be thinking?
00:52:13.420And for some older folks, and maybe they're even listening right now, but it might be like, I know it's really comfortable where you are and your kids have moved away and they've established young families and things like that. And maybe think about moving to them. Maybe think about proposing like, hey, we would love to move in and maybe build onto your house or do something where we can come and help out.
00:52:34.980And like this multi-generational vision needs to be recaptured, I think, if we're really going to be in our children's corner is where I kind of hope I don't die in a house that my wife and I live in by ourselves.
00:52:46.260I kind of hope that we end up in some way maybe with one of our children or, you know, like in that there's such beauty there where they really are going to end up helping and serving if we both, Lord willing, live to an old age and the normal way of old age comes upon us and don't die in a fiery plane crash or something.
00:53:03.320But, like, that to me is, that's the target.
00:53:08.240That's the compass bearing that I want my life to be pointed at.
00:53:19.780What's really interesting, the one Rocky Balboa, where he actually does go back and fight, but it's really interesting moving into the Creed movies.
00:53:27.920Rocky, like, starts a restaurant and wants to just kind of check out and chill.
00:53:31.420and then the young man is coming to him saying no you need to you need to help me and so for him
00:53:37.740it's a cool story because he's fighting that urge to like no i just want to go have it easy
00:53:41.660yeah and then finally he realized like no i need to be there for you know apollo creed's kid but
00:53:48.580it's like a son to him yeah and so i think again just to encourage older guys we tell be there we
00:53:54.260tell these stories because this is a temptation that faces all of us is to check out in our old
00:53:57.760age and not pour into the next generation yeah and i think one of the overarching themes that
00:54:02.240we haven't touched on but is an important element in all of this is that one of the best ways you
00:54:09.140see this in in fighters in in in these movies that we've discussed is that the trainer actually
00:54:15.180believes that their fighter can win yeah that's so important they believe that they can win yeah
00:54:20.600they see what the fighter doesn't in fact yes that they have more than they they think they do
00:54:25.320And that's one of the, I think, the biggest elements, tying it all the way back to when we talked about the Black Pill movement, having a vision and everything like that, is that one of the key elements is to say that you can win.
01:00:19.520No, no. It reminds me of the Joe Rigney quote that we've referenced from The Things of Earth, where he says, his son, you know, looking up at me, reaching for God. Like, that is supposed to train in both directions, us to understand the father better and for our children to understand the father better as they do reach us.
01:00:42.260But the aspect of that clip that was the most interesting to me was I never thought about it like this.
01:00:47.860Children do want to be picked up because they want to see you from your perspective.