00:03:37.420Most particularly brings into being new life, new creatures, that power of procreation, the power of bringing life into the world is certainly a big part of fatherhood.
00:03:49.680But not only is it that, but it's then the care for that creation.
00:03:53.320It's the father, you know, makes this world and we, his created children, rebel and defy him.
00:04:02.460And yet the father comes for his rebellious children right away.
00:04:07.040in the garden? What have you done? Have you eaten the fruit? And then rather than, you know, I mean,
00:04:12.060just destroying it all and starting over again or something like that, determines to save,
00:04:17.700determines to, while there are consequences for that sin and long-term consequences in many
00:04:22.520respects, the father remains present. While there's more distance because of sin, the father
00:04:27.540pursues his people, gives them promises, keeps those promises, makes covenant with his people.
00:04:33.900And you can trace that down through Old Testament history of him being the God of Noah, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Israel, the God of the judges, the God of David.
00:04:45.740And he is, I think even just like the genealogies in the Old Testament, maybe as tedious as they sometimes seem, where it's, you know, I can't even pronounce these names, is I think a testimony to the fatherhood of God.
00:04:58.620That God is, this is God's family line.
00:05:02.420These are his people. We don't know who they were. We've forgotten their names. We can't even pronounce their names. And God knew them all by name. And they were his children, his people that he cared for over thousands of years. Ultimately, a record of keeping his promise that the seed of the woman would come and crush the seed of the serpent.
00:05:21.300and so he did he was born of a virgin he is the perfect son the eternal son become a one of us
00:05:29.040to stand for us stand in our place to bring us back to the father and to reconcile us to the
00:05:35.940father and so i think all the you know life giver maker creator presence love diligently pursuing
00:05:44.260patience kindness um i tell i tell my people uh you know when i whenever i have opportunity to
00:05:51.460reference the kings i mean the book of kings if that doesn't show you the patience of god i don't
00:05:56.400know what will um you know like and i think that's part of the point you read through kings and you're
00:06:01.680like just nuke them god just just kill them there you know and and and god is still sending prophets
00:06:08.460to them, still, as the scripture says, holding his hands out to them, even when he finally0.99
00:06:13.820does give them the great exilic spanking and, you know, sends them into, into exile, you
00:06:19.780know, into the great, the great time out or something.
00:10:12.720They're not present. They're absent. All of the things that we're seeing around us and and it creates this world of abdication, of no responsibility, of and I think maybe maybe ultimately, fundamentally, cultures of despair.0.60
00:10:28.040I think it's despair that says that turns into apathy and depression.
00:10:33.620And so we have mass suicide rates, particularly among young men and middle aged men, no hope.
00:10:41.200And, you know, fentanyl and all the rest of the statistics, the opiate crisis, you have no hope.0.99
00:10:47.840You're a screw up. And then I think also you have the despair of, well, you know, screw it.0.98
00:10:53.600I'll do whatever I want, and I won't even care about anyone, because it doesn't matter either.
00:10:59.100So, I mean, I think despair goes both directions.
00:11:00.900Despair, you know, hides in a closet and just fades away, and maybe even, you know, takes his own life.
00:11:07.400And despair just runs roughshod over anybody and everyone, just, I'm just going to get what I can get.
00:11:13.800And then I think in the middle of that chaos, since that's not, you know, anarchy doesn't last long,
00:11:18.260Anarchy is completely unstable. The father, you know, the, the, uh, the real, I think the real
00:11:24.580satanic father that likes to step in is a obese, overreaching state. I just went on a little
00:11:30.820tirade yesterday on Twitter with Josh Hawley's, uh, recent proposed legislation to, uh, ban
00:11:37.200social media use for, you know, people under the age of 16. And there, there's a, you know,
00:11:43.520case in point of, you know, a conservative who's a good guy. I mean, I think Josh Hawley is a,
00:11:48.180pretty good conservative guy on so many fronts, but there he is playing the role of a dad
00:11:54.300in the federal government. And the federal government sucks at being dad. That's not0.98
00:12:02.560God's assigned duty. Now, they have a fatherly duty, actually, that the Bible will describe
00:12:08.240the civil magistrates as foster fathers and nursing mothers. But the civil magistrate is
00:12:13.520a faithful father when it stays in its lane, when it punishes evildoers, when it punishes
00:12:18.320criminals and praises the righteous, but doesn't try to make, you know, house rules like a
00:12:24.580real true faithful father is supposed to be who's present.
00:12:27.360I don't know if that's getting at what you're asking, but.
00:13:33.360It's your job, whether at home, whether in a co-op, whether in a faithful Christian school.
00:13:38.420But it's your responsibility to see to it that your children grow up loving the Lord from before they can remember until they leave your house.
00:13:47.680That's what the nurture and admonition literally is the culture and the counsel of Jesus, like the culture of Jesus, the paideia of Jesus.
00:13:57.760So I would say that's one big, huge one would be education.
00:14:01.020We we we are the best that we're doing right now and culturally broadly is just sort of skirmishing around the edges.
00:14:08.340But the real issue is actually like, no, it's your job to raise your children in the Lord.
00:14:12.880And if you're sending them to a school where 40 hours a week they are required to ignore the fact that God exists and that he has spoken clearly in his word, you are failing.
00:14:23.700You have an F. You cannot do that and pretend to be a faithful father.
00:14:28.200You know, another major issue is, is sexual fidelity. The whole, I mean, why is the porn industry this, you know, billion, hundreds of billions of dollars industry? I don't know, maybe it's a trillion now. Well, because men feed it, because men pay for it, because men are sexually unfaithful, sexually undisciplined, and they have an appetite and a demand for it.
00:14:50.800The Bible says that when you, particularly when you commit sexual sin, whether it's virtual, electronic, or in person with, you know, hookup apps or prostitutes or whatever, you are giving your strength to women and you, and you are being reduced to a crust of bread.0.52
00:15:11.100you you have no energy no wisdom uh to be a faithful father when you just um you know
00:15:18.680spill your seed everywhere that's a that's a faithless father and an irresponsible father0.99
00:15:24.600and then i think that just leads directly to all kinds of sexual promiscuity um where you have you0.99
00:15:30.600know multiple children from multiple moms you've got broken families you've got adultery uh you've
00:15:35.980got divorce, uh, and all these, all these other cultural curses. I mean, the, I mean, the statistics
00:15:41.880are, you know, off the wall of, you know, intact families and children that grow up with both their
00:15:46.300biological mom and their biological dad. And I think, you know, that's another indicator though,
00:15:51.400sexual promiscuity, sexual, uh, faithlessness is fundamentally a failure of fatherhood to
00:15:57.180recognize the potency of the marriage bed. And, and particularly that's the power of fatherhood
00:16:03.620is both bringing that life into existence and then cultivating that life, loving that life,
00:16:09.580nurturing that life, disciplining that life so that it in turn is a potent life-giving force
00:16:16.440in the world in the next generation. There's a line in, I think it's a Joe Rigney book,
00:16:22.740The Things of Earth, where he's talking about his own son and how his son was holding his arms up to
00:16:31.600him one morning, as young, very young, maybe three or four, and I think he said something
00:16:36.220like, my son has his arms out to me, but he's actually reaching for God, because it's supposed
00:16:43.040to train him, the affection, the being received, the my father cherishes, protects me, he takes
00:16:50.180me in his arms, he's for me, he's my father.
00:16:53.560That's a design feature, that approval and that reception is supposed, like you mentioned
00:16:59.980in the baptism of Jesus is supposed to train us for the fatherhood of God. And so when you take
00:17:07.180that away, when you sever that at the root, you get in and you say no fathers or dysfunctional
00:17:13.300fathers, tyrant fathers, the state as father, any of those abdicating passive fathers, it seems like
00:17:21.320there is a straight line. And I hadn't thought about it quite in these terms until you were
00:17:25.240talking about sexual sin, there has to be a straight line between men who will go to a
00:17:32.060thousand hookers, basically, and the bed of a thousand women to try and find the approval or
00:17:40.040the satisfaction that maybe there's a straight line there to your father should have given you0.99
00:17:47.520that approval and taught you how to be a self-controlled man and handle women. And I'd
00:17:52.280never connected that to the porn industry before, but I think you're right. Absolutely. You know,
00:17:56.080I think, uh, uh, Ben Merkel gave a talk a year or two ago, uh, somewhere, um, that where he,
00:18:02.660he said is made the really striking point. Like if it was necessary, if it was good and right
00:18:10.520for God, the father to proclaim his pleasure over his perfect son, I mean, perfect son,
00:18:18.100perfect father, no tension, no strength, you know, like the perfect love and perfect approval.
00:18:24.740If it was necessary and good for him to proclaim publicly to Jesus, his approval, and that being a
00:18:31.060really strategic preparation for him then to go right into the wilderness and be tempted by the
00:18:35.040devil. I mean, you know, remember the temptation is if you are really the son of God. Oh yeah.
00:18:41.500If God is really your father, do this. It's all hinged on the fatherhood of God.
00:18:50.760And it was necessary, it was a perfect part of God's perfect plan
00:18:54.340that God was going to show up, the Father was going to show up at the baptism
00:18:56.960and proclaim that pleasure over his Son.
00:18:59.380If it's necessary then in that perfect situation,
00:19:02.240how much more so is it necessary and needed in all the rest of our families
00:19:06.060where none of us are perfect, where we need that.
00:19:09.540The other thing that reminds me of, Brian, is one of the places
00:19:14.080where that same kind of dynamic that Joe is describing of, you know, the hands up and learning
00:19:20.020and seeing through the father, the father. I think God really kind of pressed that on me when
00:19:26.340we had a foster son for a year, a number of years ago, a baby. Got him from the hospital two days
00:19:33.580old and stayed with us for almost a full year before he was adopted by an aunt and uncle. And
00:19:39.660And it was this really striking thing to have this baby in your home that you're just pouring yourself out for like this, you know, your own son.
00:19:47.640And a few months into it, we were relatively certain that he was going to be adopted by his aunt and uncle.
00:19:52.580So you're sort of kind of mentally preparing for that.
00:19:54.780But you don't get to, you know, go half-hearted.
00:26:08.760One place Jesus says that anyone who has given up father, mother, sister, brother, lands,
00:26:15.080riches for my sake and for the sake of the kingdom will receive fathers, mothers, siblings,
00:26:22.380lands with persecutions in this life and in the life to come.
00:26:28.160And I don't think he necessarily, I mean, I think part of it is, I think he does put the solitary in families as, as Psalm 68 says.
00:26:36.440And sometimes that means, you know, you left, you know, unbelieving pagan parents and you, you became a Christian.
00:26:42.680And then over time you were married and you'd begin building your own biological family.
00:26:47.860But I also think part of what it's talking, Jesus is talking about there is the fathers and mothers that you inherit in the covenant people.
00:26:56.200Sometimes people say, well, you're so blessed and so lucky because, you know, your dad was a Christian and your grandpa was a Christian.
00:27:02.980And, you know, well, you know, I didn't have that.
00:27:05.060You know, my dad abandoned my mom when I was five and my mom was on drugs.
00:27:09.880And, you know, here I am and I'm trying to figure it out.
00:27:12.480I say, well, first of all, you're not that special.
00:27:16.740We're all sinners and we all have our wrecks.
00:27:19.060And then number two, welcome to the family of God, where you now have fathers and grandfathers
00:30:06.460And the world just – it's such a shining glory against the backdrop of the world that just doesn't care about that person.0.85
00:30:15.800And I think recognizing, too, that – I mean, to our shame, I think part of the evidence of the failure of the local church has been the LGBT community.0.61
00:30:28.240We say LGBT community. And I mean, you know, you read Rosaria Butterfield's, you know, biography and testimony of coming out of the lesbian community. Like she is pretty honest. She's like, actually, that was where I found a lot of my community.
00:30:43.880Yeah. We actually cared for each other compared to just sort of your bland secularism. There was more community there. And but but interestingly, strikingly, it was this reformed pastor that invited her for dinner and they won. Yeah, it was it was a sweeter fellowship. And I think that's that's the answer. But I think that's why a bunch of kids and young people are getting drawn into even the sort of the black pill stuff you're talking about earlier.
00:31:07.840there's a kind of community angst. I mean, it's just, I mean, there's, there's a reason why0.90
00:31:11.500when, when faithful fatherhood is not celebrated and honored, men become thugs.
00:31:19.740Fatherhood doesn't go away. It just turns satanic and dark. And, uh, and that's why you have gangs
00:31:25.420and that's, you know, that's why you have Antifa. That's why, you know, that's why you have,
00:31:30.960you know, black pill communities. It's, it's, it's, it's an attempt at community and brotherhood1.00
00:31:36.680and looking for fatherly affirmation and affection.
00:32:04.920Yeah, one of the things you talked about, Toby, on your blog, I think, a couple years ago, so this is like 2020, we saw a big thing happening, obviously, in the culture and the church.
00:32:15.960There was a lot of tyranny, but you connected it to fatherhood.
00:32:20.520And I think something Doug even said was, like, when John MacArthur stepped up and said, no, we're going to resist this, I think Doug either said he was the father or the grandfather that we're all kind of looking to.
00:32:31.160So one of the things that seems is tied to this is church fathers and the resistance to tyranny.
00:32:37.240So I wonder if you might just connect those dots for me.
00:32:39.840How does fatherhood connect with why we need people in the church who are not just laying down the doormat for Fauci or whoever else?
00:32:47.420Well, you know, so I think the mandate of the church, of course, is to preach the entire word of God, to preach the gospel, but to disciple the nations, teaching them everything that Jesus has commanded.
00:33:01.420And so we have a ministry of the word and sacrament is the center of the church.
00:33:06.800So the church's job is not to replace fathers, but we have a fatherly calling.
00:33:13.440Paul talks about him being a father to Timothy.
00:33:16.840He tells the Corinthians, you have a lot of teachers, but you need some fathers.
00:42:21.580But got a relative to lie for him that he was 17.
00:42:25.080and um and so he he went to the um to the pacific front in world war ii like i know 14 year olds
00:42:33.420yeah this is that's he that's not where they belong he yeah well he used to like to tell me
00:42:39.240that he was a rather mature 14 year old i don't know how much of this okay embellishment but he
00:42:43.840said he was already shaving by the time he was enlisted so and i i don't think i was shaving at
00:42:49.12014 yet but anyways he uh but um but definitely one of these like you know find your own way
00:42:56.120pull yourself up by your own bootstraps type guy um you know married my my grandma and then you
00:43:01.800know worked his butt off in the oil industry um for many many years was faithful to my grandma
00:43:07.780raised four boys but then but but i think there were some pretty sharp edges um that my dad grew
00:43:14.800up with and hard things. So it was better than what my papa grew up with, but it was still not
00:43:21.100good. And so my dad coming to the Lord, God was just faithful working in on that. But I think
00:43:28.380I'm the kind of hard-headed, difficult person that the Lord knew that I needed many fathers.
00:43:36.800And so in addition to my own biological father, and I looked to my grandpa, even though he wasn't
00:43:42.460as much of a spiritual father, uh, he certainly had some things really, really right. He was a
00:43:49.700very, very hard worker. He was faithful, uh, and kind and generous to his wife and to all his
00:43:55.620grandkids. Um, if, if fatherhood, you know, uh, James says that, um, every good and perfect gift
00:44:01.840comes down from the father of lights. Um, one of the marks of fatherhood is generosity and gift
00:44:07.620giving because the father has given us his son and the father has given us the spirit and the
00:44:12.880father gives us light and life. Um, and my grandpa modeled that kind of faithful fatherhood in his
00:44:18.840generosity, his kindness, his care, calling his grandkids, you know, every single one of his
00:44:23.840grandkids for years until he died, um, regularly calling them, how are you doing? What's going on?
00:44:29.040Wanted to know about us. Um, but in it, but I was, you know, I'm the kind of hardheaded,
00:44:34.340difficult son that needed more fathers. And so I've said this for years, actually, that when I
00:44:38.780came out to New St. Andrews College in 1998 as a 17-year-old, I knew the Lord, I loved the Lord,
00:44:44.340but I was definitely, I had a lot of immaturities, confusions, my own, you know, rebellious
00:44:52.180streaks. And I think the Lord plopped me down in this community in particular, in Moscow, Idaho,
00:44:57.360and in his grace gave me about, I don't know, three, four, five more dads. And the kind of
00:45:03.000thing you're describing earlier, Brian, about a church and a covenant community is exactly what
00:45:07.080I got. And some of it was primarily in teaching. Some of it was actually pulling me aside at
00:45:14.120various points and saying, stop it. Yes. And, oh, okay. What a gift. And, and, and, and really,
00:45:23.640I mean, sometimes it's just like a, I think obviously there are harsh dads that maybe are
00:45:29.220just badgering but i think there are also lots of times there's really good natured dads who don't
00:45:33.780want to be the badger don't want to be the jerk and so then they don't correct but if but if you0.96
00:45:38.120just sometimes just pull it you know sit somebody down and just say you know i think you should0.98
00:45:42.320stop doing that they're like oh okay i mean sometimes it might blow up but i but i think
00:45:50.380sometimes there's actually far more openness to teaching and correction i uh my poor my poor dad
00:45:56.260I went to, I graduated high school in spring of 98 and went and worked in construction in Alaska for a month or two in that summer before I came out here and went up there and was hanging out with some old friends.
00:46:11.020I actually, I'm from Alaska, lived up there for a few years as a kid and stayed with some friends.
00:46:15.760And, you know, one day, you know, a bunch of teenage high school guys think it's a great idea.
00:46:20.680Let's all go out and get our ears pierced.
00:46:22.620and uh and so i you know i show up back in maryland where my family is with my ears pierced
00:46:29.340and both of them i don't know you know that was a thing i guess i don't know probably wasn't a
00:46:33.600thing and my dad didn't say anything maybe just like oh okay but like about a week or two in he
00:46:40.180just sat me down and said son you know i really tried to be okay with it but it really bothers me
00:51:31.280But this year's annual conference is in October 11th to the 14th.
00:51:35.820And it will be at the Ark Encounter in Kentucky.
00:51:38.580We have Ken Ham speaking and Dr. Gordon Wilson.
00:51:41.860And the theme this year is the politics of six-day creation.
00:51:45.080So we focus on the intersection between what the Bible teaches and public square policy and politics and calling the church back to faithfulness there.
00:51:55.640Some of the things we talked about today.
00:51:57.580But I think the ramifications for understanding Genesis 1 to 3 are enormous.
00:52:13.160All those things are massively important principles for the public square and for public policy.
00:52:19.580And so we're hoping to explore that intersection of the importance of literal Genesis 1 to 3.
00:52:26.020If you start going poetic or metaphorical or whatever on that and trying to insert billions of years, then why can't you reinvent what a woman is when human life begins?