113: Reclaim Biblical Masculinity

[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hey. Welcome to the Grace House Podcast. Brian Phillips here with you today. I'm with a good friend of mine, Dr. Steve Castle, been running together for about a decade or so. Steve, it's good to have you on today's episode. We're just going to jump into this because in our past episodes, they get high engagement, man. I think they're like some of the top in our Gracehops culture and world. So people like it when we just dive deep in. We're going to be looking at the reclaim challenge. This whole design I came up with this many years ago, just started rolling it out in the Grace Ops culture we need to reclaim biblical masculinity. And Steve and I are today are going to be talking about reclaiming. I'm framing it all from basically the story of David and Goliath. I think that's very fitting for today's culture. We're up against this Goliath in the design of the reclaim. There's a rainbow, very strategically placed because that's the Satanic flag of the hour. It's marking territories that have been conquered by the enemy, and it's destroying lives. It's destroying families. It's destroying our country. So I want to get back into what does it look like to actually be a man after God's own heart, like David, and actually reclaim things before the Lord? So we're just jumping right in here. Steve, what do you think about this topic of reclaiming? I know you've seen this design many years ago, mine, you liked it. So go ahead and get us started on your thoughts. [00:01:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not going to take any kind of an arrogant position here, but I probably was the guy that repoked at you a year or two ago. I'm like, dude, you've got to get back on this reclaim thing, because obviously culture is on purpose trying to trespass on property, on territory that has been won by conquest through Jesus Christ and the finished work. And so when you came up with I don't even know how long ago that was, five, six, seven years ago, you're like, man, I'm going to reclaim the bow, retake the bow. And I'm like, dude, you got to rock that. And that was whatever, a year or two ago. And so obviously, I'm super excited about you actually launching under the banner, under the language of reclaim, because I think this is exactly what needs to happen in our society. It's not about us taking territory that doesn't belong to us or didn't belong to us or wasn't ever ours. It's actually about reclaiming things that have been stolen and trespassed from the church, from the eclissia, the authentic eclissia. And it's been a long time coming, but I honestly believe that we're going into this time frame now. [00:03:04] Speaker A: There's a lot of work to do. What I've kind of found it's interesting that Gracehops eventually we want to develop components for the entire family, men, women, children. But we decide in the beginning days to really aim it at starting it off, aiming it at men, and sometimes I think so I've been in this for a couple of years now, really retooling, Repivoting, kind of restructuring a lot of things. And now we're kind of at this place where it's like, all right, we're ready to crank this thing in and go after it. So the more I'm in that lane of going after it strong, I find there's just so much dullness out there. I mean, men are so dull. And I'm not picking on guys. I'm just saying we've been so conditioned by culture. We've been conditioned by just turn your head, just be a good guy, just ignore this. Just ignore one more law, ignore one more school board policy. Just keep ignoring it. Just keep making money. Oh, and by the way, on our sitcoms, we're going to make fun of you and treat men like they're the dumbest guys. They don't have the capacity to lead a family or let alone make a decision. Just sit down with your bag of chips and enjoy the show. What our culture has done with Masculinity is nothing short of demonic. I mean, it's a demonic attack on the family. If you can destroy male and female, you can destroy all kinds of things. [00:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I actually kind of reflect because obviously a little bit of our history. I don't know how much the current audience I know your audience and the guys that are connected to Reclaim and Grace Ops are different than they once were. And so just real quick, like Brian said, we've been pals for it's ten years now, for sure. And we've been running hard after Godly Masculinity, after bravery and courage in our culture today. And I was the first pastor in the nation to sue the government during the infamous 2020 pandemic for shutting down the church. Because I believe that the eclissia, the bride of Christ, is essential, not nonessential. And I believe that she's worth it. She's valuable enough to fight for. So I started that fight. Took a ton of slings and arrows. I was probably the most hated pastor in America for about six months. I was Viley treated by all the mainstream media to my honor. I was honored to do that. And then eventually we went to the Supreme Court of the United States and we won. And all the churches in America were legally now lawfully able to be open. And Brian was one of the few people, honestly, I could count on about two hands, the number of Christians, let alone Christian leaders, that actually were behind me and started their own fight. Brian had his own fight going was he was warring against the culture and the lockdowns and the mandates, as well as I in different areas. And so that is what kind of precipitated us. Brian and I, being connotated as David's against our goliaths of culture and having language like tip of the spear being applied to us because we were willing to go out there and do some things that were definitely not popular in our culture and weren't even popular in Christianity. And after all of that, here's kind of the point of where I was going with all that. After all that, after we won, the Supreme Court said, yes, Steve Castle is right. The First Amendment, Hebrews 1025, those things are more important than Governor Pritzker's tyranny after all that, the first Sunday we opened up, the church, fought, took bomb threats, death threats. They were going to kill my family. I'd Google Earth pictures of my home, and they were going to come after me and do terrible things to my wife and daughter and all this stuff. After all that fighting and grinding and groaning the church, that next Sunday in Illinois, 23% of the churches were open. And I realized that my fight wasn't just against tyranny. It wasn't just against ungodliness. It wasn't just against an atheistic or an agnostic culture that was contrary to Christianity or even adamantly opposed to Christianity. What I realized is that the real fight was that the Christians don't believe in the church, and the pastors and the leaders don't believe in the church. And we've lost Godly. Masculinity for just generally to fight for what is right. And so that's Ryan, Brian and I ramped up. Like, we have got to do something really passionate, really purposeful, and honestly a little offensive against this. Lethargic apathetic. Culture, specifically in Christian men, it wasn't that long ago it was not that long ago that men in culture, in our society, not even Christian men, just men. There was a certain strength, there was a certain integrity, there was a certain character that they adopted as being a man. And I'm not even talking Christian man. I'm just talking regular, run of the mill man in America. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Masculinity yeah. [00:08:47] Speaker B: And an example of that is it's not that long ago that we would have people that if they challenged someone's culture, they were having a duel, like, literally two guys take out pistols. You said I was a liar. I'm not a liar. Okay, well, I think you are a liar. Well, you've challenged my character. You've challenged my integrity. I got my pistol. You got your pistol, and we're going to go have a duel and somebody's dying. Because I am not going to allow you to malign my name, malign my character, malign my integrity. And now they come out and they abuse the church and even the Christian men. I think about this because the church is called the Bride of Christ. In Revelation 19, if somebody came up and they wanted to assault my bride and insult my bride and say filthy things about her, it would be over my dead body. Literally over my dead body. And I've watched so many Christian men that they have abused the Bride of Christ, or they allow her to be abused in their presence, and nothing like, nothing rises up in them. And it's just I'm caught off guard. [00:10:05] Speaker A: I think I struck a nerve on this first point of dullness. [00:10:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I just caught off guard that we're at this point, I got Steve. [00:10:10] Speaker A: Going. [00:10:14] Speaker B: A lot of people have called me and, you know, David's, because we've done these huge things, and we fought giants, and we've gone after big things, but, man, I don't even know if that's true. [00:10:26] Speaker A: I just call myself normal. [00:10:29] Speaker B: I just think that this should be. [00:10:30] Speaker A: What normal men do. [00:10:32] Speaker B: Right? That's where I'm at. I just think this is just Godly masculinity in its action. And because it's been so badly dissolved in our current progressive, modern churchianity, that when guys like you and I just do basic Godly masculinity things, people are you know, Brian and Steve are so courageous, and they're bold, and they're like I don't I don't really feel that way about myself. [00:11:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I was waiting. I want to be David. When? I don't know. Okay, so, like, this whole concept of it, what motivated me in those days was two things. One was just the way the church was getting pushed around, and that was not right. It wasn't right for the church to be treated. That know walmart. All the box stores can be open, but you can't go worship if you couldn't see through that stuff, you've already drank the Koolaid. And I'll never forget a time in my life. This goes back, I don't know, 13 years ago, maybe. My daughter was up against a very bad medical. She went in for minor surgery. Something went really wrong in the first many hours after she came out of surgery. And we really needed a miracle. I mean, she was in really bad condition. Her body was great. She looked like she's going to die. I mean, it was terrible. And I'll never forget a friend of mine had called me at the time and used some choice language that I won't share on this episode with you, but it was another word that you'd use for butt or something like that. But he called me. He said, God, want me to tell you, get up off here and pray. Let's go. Now. It's not like I wasn't praying. It's not that I wasn't in tune, but that jolted me into a whole nother mode where I literally stood up in that hospital room, cleared the room, barricaded the door, and we went after just going after the throne, just declaring things and going there, and we immediately saw breakthrough. I mean, it was pretty cool, but I remember being a little I don't know if offended is the right word, but it's just the jolt of that guy's actions. But I was so thankful for it afterwards. And we're in that same type of hour right now where we have to jolt, we have to slap some people kind of in spiritual, metaphor kind of way, getting them to wake up, and hopefully once they see what they need to see, they'll be thankful for what we did to them. And it's one of those things where it's kind of hard a little bit, Steve, because then you get into that lane and you're enduring so much, it becomes hard. I mean, the enemy is like, oh, there's a couple of guys over here wanting to fight. Let's aim everything we got at those two guys or at those 25 guys or whatever, and then it becomes very exhausting. So what motivated me was just the concept of this isn't right, and the second concept of the Constitution. And then you get into Illinois law, and Illinois even has more protective barriers for church and state and all that stuff. So Dullness is definitely a big problem. I want to take a moment and just identify the battlefield, because when I look at David and Goliath in that battle and I've shared this on the podcast before, but in 2016, I was running through the Valley of Eli. I was actually on the field. It was a Father's Day. It was like 100 degrees in Israel. Don't go to Israel in June. It was an epic moment in my life. My daughters are calling me while I'm running on the Valley of Ela. They're wishing me happy Father's Day. It was a pretty cool moment. But anyway, when we read the scriptures, there was dullness in the camp of Israel for 40 days, because here's Saul's Men, goliath come out making his usual defiance against the bride of Christ. The people of these these warrior type guys, right? Tough guys, guys rebellion men, men that you wouldn't want to be probably messed around with on the side. They're strong guys, and they're all cowards. So there was an atmosphere of Know. So we've got that. We've got Know shows up on the battlefield. David starts to take action. Ultimately goliath dies. But I want to kind of walk through some of these elements on the battlefield as a motivation. I don't even know. Those are cheap words, I feel like I mean, we're in Desperate Hours foundation. Yeah, we're in a desperate Hour of the Church of Men awakening. So we're calling you out through Grace Ops. We're making this call and this challenge to reclaim biblical masculinity. [00:15:11] Speaker B: The parallels are easy to see. They were 40 days into being taunted by an uncircumcised, someone who does not have a covenant with their God. And here we are in America 40 years. We're, like, 40 years into Godly masculinity, being taunted by an ungodly culture. And to play the David role. This is kind of where I am in the David role. I don't believe I was this hero guy that did these things. The way that I interpret the David role in this story is David was just some dude, just some Godly dude watching Know, the youngest of all of his brothers and just honoring his father by watching sheep, loving his family, doing the right thing out there, having an intimate relationship with God. And his father says, hey, your brothers are off to war. Take some bread and them run them out some lunch. Be a good kid, run them out some lunch. And because David's integrity and David's foundation was so solid, he didn't try to be a godly man. He was it wasn't something that he worked the twelve points. He wasn't out there on the desert saying, okay, one day I'm going to be challenged in my character and my integrity. And so this is the five checkpoints that I got to make sure that I work on out here so that I can turn into a godly man, so that when that time comes, I'll be ready. [00:16:54] Speaker A: No, he's like, this is the key of David. Sorry, I had to make that right. This was something. [00:17:02] Speaker B: It was natural for him because he had an intimate relationship with God. He was a man of integrity, and he already was building his character. He fought a lion when it came to try to kill his sheep. He fought a bear when it came to try to kill his sheep. So this was just something that was just organically natural to him as a godly man. And then he shows up on the battlefield and he's watching Goliath taunt what is it, two or three times a day? I can't remember. Taunt the soldiers of the army of the Lord. And he literally has this Duh moment where he's like, what's going on? What's the problem? This is this is kind of where you and I are, Brian. We're like watching this stuff go on. You just let people treat your family that way. You just let people treat your culture that way, your society that way. You let them treat your church that way. They're doing this publicly, openly, and you're just sitting there watching football, drinking a beer, thinking that you're a good Godly man because you're working on your pension and you're 29 years into your 40 year career, and you think this is okay, and that I really do want to be that guy. I want to show up and say, you're letting an uncircumcised philistine taunt you, make fun of you. What's the deal here? [00:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think one of the biggest goliaths in our hour, and I don't know if you've read Return of the Gods, jonathan Khan's book, and if you haven't picked that up and you're listening to this get the really it's really amazing. And I'm an audiobook guy, and there's something about the guy that reads that book. He sounds really cool and gnarly. I wish he could read all my audiobooks. I wish you could just choose him as a filter and lay him over everything. [00:18:56] Speaker B: He's got a cool recruit him for my book. [00:18:59] Speaker A: He's got a cool yeah, he needs to read your I feel you know, he identifies you know, he's starting about all these ancient gods that we've allowed back into our country, and that's one of the things in our and I Can't Remember All The Specific Names He Uses as Far As The Goddess. But the goddess that comes back, she identifies as male and female. She's female, but she identifies as male. And he just brilliantly goes through all that. And that's exactly what we're up against today in this day and age of, like, men believing they can be women, women believing they can be men. Literally, I sound like a bully because they've been trained to think that way. If I say it's stupid, then I sound like a callous bully or whatever, but it is stupid. I mean, this is nonsense that we've allowed to play out in our schools. So it is a massive goliath. When you've got the rainbow flag that's been draped over in light of the White House. It's conquered territory, man. I live in a neighborhood. There's a couple of houses I drive by that have the rainbow flag right out front of their house. And I'm like, I'm not mad necessarily at the people because it's a spiritual battle, but I'm mad at the entities that have deceived these people. I'm mad at these spiritual forces of evil. So our school districts there's a noose around the neck of the next generation. And I did a podcast not too long ago called Bacon covered Shrimp. And I talk about a local politician in Army County, and he's at this fundraising thing I went to, and he said, you had the bacon covered shrimp? And I'm like, man, is he poking the bear? I don't know where this guy's going with his comment. And he's like, don't, we live in a great country, this bacon covered covered shrimp. And I just looked at this guy, and I said, dude, bacon covered shrimp? That's what you're talking to me about right now? I said, our children have a noose around their neck. LGBTQ is coming against everything in our society, tearing down our schools and our families. And I go, I'm looking around this room right now at this little fundraiser, and I'm like, I think most of the problems standing right here, and you're one of the problems right here in front of me, and it just kills all the oxygen in the room, and they want to walk away quick. But when you talk to people like that and you do keep their attention, you keep people on edge a little. So that is a big goliath in our hour. This LGBTQ thing is not just about tolerating and loving. I mean, they claim tolerance, and they tolerate nothing. They'll devour their own in a heartbeat. And there's a much larger agenda at play here, but we've got to stand against these things. So the first part of reclaim to me the way I'm kind of putting out there at Grace Ops is reclaim your own heart before the Lord. It's interesting, right? I've been serving Christ for 30 years, 30 some years, 33 years. And when I look back over that 33 year period of time, there are times where I feel like my lamp is full of oil, and I'm just like, I'm solid, I'm ready to go. And if I'm honest right now, I'm kind of in a season where I feel like my lamp needs some oil and I'm feeling it and I'm smart enough to go, you know, I'm going to put some things together for my calendar on October to recalibrate some things. So I'm kind of reclaiming some things. This is good for me to go through, but it's like we're in October recording this. It probably won't launch till first quarter, but nonetheless, that's just a couple blinks away. But I want lamp in my know, I want to reclaim my heart before the Lord and live in that place of fire, that place of know. Steve was talking about David's, just a regular guy going know he hears this. But what made him so different, what was on the other side of that ear was a heart that had a sensitivity to the things of God, had a sensitivity to the name and the honor that should go to God, and actually had disdain for the enemies of God. Like, dude, who does this guy think he is? [00:23:12] Speaker B: Yeah, this is actually really revealing revelatory that if you'll catch this, if all the guys out there catch this, here's how I knew that this was a spiritual thing, because, like, what Brian was saying, they went after the kids. I mean, they're currently right now actively going after the kids. They're going after them. And where are the we're even in our nation, the women stood up. There's all these moms for liberty, and there's these soccer mom groups and mama bear stuff and all that. Where are the men? Where are the men? I mean, they're literally going after our children, and the men are just like, hey, you know what? And that's how I know that this is an actual spiritual thing. This is a spirit of apathy. This is a lethargic attitude that has been instituted by spiritual forces. Because the enemy knows that in order to conquer a society, he has to first conquer the men. So the men have to be conquered first. And the way that he's going to do it is through spiritual ways, spiritual activity. And what it is is it's distraction. It's making things unimportant. And I had a great analogy the other day, and I know Brian, you'll really connect with this. So hopefully everybody in the audience connects with this. I was sitting at a table with a bunch of guys, and we were talking about this exact same topic, and I said, you know, I'm waiting for that day of Rambo first blood and if anybody's out there have never seen that movie. And I'm not telling you to necessarily go watch a bloody movie or anything like that, but at least watch the first part of Rambo. And a lot of people forgot the context of Rambo. But let me give it to you real quick. So Rambo veteran, probably a little PTSD Vietnam vet, and this is back in the think when the movie came out. And so here's John Rambo literally in his flak jacket, walking down the highway, and all he wants to do is go find one of his Vietnam buddies and just hang out and be friends and just do friend stuff because he really doesn't trust anybody in society and all that. So he's literally walking down the street, backpack, flak jacket, and some cop pulls him over and gives him or not pulls him over, but basically comes up and just starts hassling the guy, giving him a hard time, like, what are you doing? Who do you think you are? We don't want your type around know, you stupid baby killers, or whatever he did to know. And John Rambo just wanted to be left alone. Just leave me alone. I'm going to go do my own thing. I'm just going to live my life. And this cop Tyranny had to get all up in his face, and eventually it turns into John getting arrested by this overtly Tyranical dude and thrown into jail. And they treat him like an animal, they abuse him and all that. And he was basically just trying to mind his own business and do his own life. And they came into his world and assaulted him and offended him. And what they didn't know is that they woke the bear. And then obviously the rest of the movie is John Rambeau getting his revenge. And I'm not saying it's all good, but the spiritual connotation is the tyranny in our world has invaded you, and on the inside of you is a warrior. God made you that way. God made us all that way. There is a warrior on the inside of every man. Courage isn't something that you have to go and find. Courage is something you stir up. Bravery isn't something you need to go outside externally and find. Bravery is Jesus Christ and living on the inside of each of us. And they've poked the bear. Hopefully on the inside of you. There's a bear that's been poked. There's a John Rambo that's like you were just trying to mind your own Christian business, raise your family, do your thing. And they the world. The Goliath came into your territory. The whole name of this is Reclaim. This means they came into our territory and pushed us out. It wasn't that long ago that culture belonged to the Christian, especially here in America. The culture was Christianized. It might not have had not everybody was a Christian. Okay, I get that. But I'm saying the culture by the. [00:27:59] Speaker A: Framework of Christian morals, right? [00:28:03] Speaker B: They weren't going to boldly walk into a transgender sex dancer dude, groomer wasn't going to just boldly walk in ugly, filthy walk into your school or walk into your library and shake their junk in front of your five year old kid. It was this long ago that if that would have happened, he'd have found himself in a dentist chair with a mouthful of teeth like this long ago. And now there's men literally out there fighting for the right for some drag queen to come walking into their children's school. And so I'm talking to the Christian men, the John rambeau. The spirit of Christ on the inside of you is striving to awaken us so that we can reclaim what has come into our society and pushed us out of the way of owning and possessing. [00:29:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think in my reclaiming your heart before the Lord, returning to the things of God is something that we have to take inventory of. We're responsible for our own spiritual development. That's why we talk about having a brotherhood of men, building a band of brothers, being honest and authentic. I was honest earlier. Like, hey, I'm in that place in my life where it's like, dude, I feel like my oil is getting a little thin, and I need to make some adjustments in my own life and heart, because just like David, david had these same issues in his own life. He wins on the battlefield with Goliath. He goes on to become anointed he's anointed king. Kills Goliath, runs for 20 years or so, then he makes some mistakes, too, right? So David is a great example for us. David doesn't always do it, right? But reclaiming our hearts before God is really where the source of our power comes from. It's where David's source of power came from. The day that he stood on that battlefield with Know, the way they did battles back then was a lot like how Steve just used the wild, wild west, right? You could go out and have a gunfight. That was kind of the style of battle they had, except for the loser got overtaken by the one who won, and a lot hung in the balance. That's why they waited 40 days. I mean, there was a lot going on, and they were scared. And that's kind of where our country is. There's so many people that need to awaken. I mean, we have such a powerful mission in the heart of the Bride of Christ. There's just so much going on. There's so many layers and multiple prongs of this dark attack against the church. And I do believe that it's all under the sovereignty of God. I believe God is using it to awaken us because he knows there's nothing. The world hasn't seen anything till they've seen a church on fire, until they've seen his people blazing with his glory, right? And we haven't really. Seen that yet. I think we've seen glimpses of that. You know what I love more than anything? I love just the whole rockford region where I live. It'd just be awesome. We're also united. There would be nothing that could take us down whether we are from my church, your church, their church. Who cares what church you're from? But we all see ourselves as part of the kingdom. But I just want to focus on this thing. Just reclaiming your heart before the Lord. For me, that means I need to go, okay, I got a little too busy. I haven't been as diligent as I need to be. I let my axe get dull, right? And there's a dullness that comes from that time. There's a dullness that comes when we're not taking good inventory of, like, what are the things in our lives that we need to repent of? What are some things that we've allowed into our heart? The Bible talks about when we take communion. It's actually a form of self judgment. We're supposed to be judging ourselves and really looking at ourselves through a righteous lens, going, okay, I need to actually be honest with myself. I need to get authentic quick. I mean, there should be a warning label on that's. What First Corinthians is doing is putting a warning label on the communion experience. Just actually don't do this with flippancy. And if you judge yourself accurately, god won't have to judge you. I mean, it's that intense. [00:32:20] Speaker B: Literally, just used those exact verses yesterday. [00:32:24] Speaker A: Literally yesterday. Yeah, that's some of my favorite. So I need to apply that to myself as a measure in this hour of my life, of like, okay, I'm going to reclaim some time, reclaim some turf. Things got going quick, so I'm going to do that. I want to challenge you to do the same thing. How can you judge yourself right now? Through the lens of righteousness, through the lens of God loves me. This is the way God really does want me to live. It's not that hard. This isn't rocket science. And then how do I return and reclaim that land back into my own heart? So how do I reclaim being a man after God? How do I reclaim loving his name greater than anything else in my you know, Steve had mentioned football. There's so many, I think about just how many platforms are out there right now where you could literally start streaming something and maybe not stop it for, like, a month or two straight. I mean, the volume of content in the Earth on these different platforms is absolutely absurd. Ridiculous. I mean, you just take to I don't even know if I can name all of them, but just Netflix, right? Just content alone. And just think about how the enemy uses that to keep us dull, to keep us distracted. When the Lord to reclaim biblical masculinity, we need to pause all that. We need to tear some of that stuff down and we need to look at our lives and judge it accurately and go, okay, this wasn't right. That's not right. Father, forgive me. Help me to reestablish my heart before you. And like Steve said before, I like the language of I'm not trying to go outside of myself and become brave or go outside of myself. And if I'm a man after God, if I'm a man in his kingdom, even when I make mistakes, I'm still a son. Even when I need to get more oil in my lamp, I'm still a son, right? It's not about trying to save myself again. [00:34:13] Speaker B: It's just about this. Let me use an example here of David because I believe that there's guys that are listening to this and are like, you know what you're? And what do I how do I reclaim? How do I get back some of this lost territory in my own heart? And so let me give you a David story, a David example, since we're on him that will hopefully bless you. And this is in one Samuel, chapter 30. And this is when David was hiding from Saul. And just like everything was terrible. Literally everything was terrible. He's supposed to be king. He was anointed king by the prophet. And here he is 13 years later, still running from Saul, hiding he's in the enemy's territories in Philistine. And it's just like every single thing is terrible. And then one Samuel 30 and it says on that day that David and his men arrived in Ziklag and the Amalekites had raided the Negev, attacked Ziklag and burned it down. And they had taken captive the women and all who were born both young and old who had not killed anyone but had carried them off as they went their way. This is the men that are with David. He's got this little troupe of Vagabonds that are hanging out with him. And they literally had their city attacked by the enemy, the Amalekites, who took their wives and their children and their stuff. It was already terrible for David. Like, terrible. And then they come home to this. I mean, imagine yourself and this is kind of how I feel about like, it was terrible three years ago. Like, five years ago, it was terrible. And then the pandemic and it was like, what? And then verse three, it says that David and his men came to the city and they found it burned and their wives and their sons and their daughters had been taken captive. So David and the troops with him lifted up their voices and they wept until they had no more strength to weep that's weeping. So let me say right there what started all this was a place of deep repentance, not surface repentance, not like everybody in the congregation, close your eyes and we'll see if anybody wants to raise their hand in order for them to come back to God or stop backsliding or whatever the altar call is. We're talking deep, deep repentance when you weep until you cannot literally physically weep any longer, that's true repentance. That's true. Brokenness before the Lord. And verse five says, david's two wives, Ahinoham and Jezreel, and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel, had been taken captive. And David was greatly distressed because the people spake a stone in him, because the soul of every man grieved for his sons and his daughters. I pray that in our society that we are grieving for our sons and our daughters like never before. And it says, but David, this is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. But David found strength in the Lord his God. But David found strength in the Lord his God. He went inside in the worst moment of his entire probably life. And kingship at that point. Whatever you want to say about David, this is after killing Goliath. This is after doing all this incredible stuff. He is in the most terrible moment of his life, and he goes inside. He reclaims this place of integrity, of intimacy, of love before God. And he found strength notice he found it. You don't find things that you're not looking for. He found strength in the Lord his God. He didn't find strength in David. He found strength in the Lord his God, inside of David. And then verse seven is one of my favorite things. And David said to Avatar, the priest, so he turned to his preacher, his pastor, and he says, bring me the ephod. And I don't have time to break into know brian can do he. He has a lot of hebraic knowledge. But the ephod was basically like the place, like the face to face, intimate place that a king or a priest had the right to. It was the holy of holies. It was like the sacred ability to meet with God. And so avathar brought it to him. And then David inquired of the Lord, should I pursue these raiders? Will I overtake them? And God said, Yep. Get them, cowboy. And I bring this story up because this is an example of where I pray that a lot of guys are now like, you're watching your sons and your daughters, you're watching your wife, you're watching the bride of Christ, you're watching all this kind of stuff. And I pray that there's something on the inside of you that's just like, how is this happening? What is going on? And the solution isn't get your musket and go charge the enemy's lines or something like that. The solution is you go inside and you stir up the divine part of you. You stir up that place between you and God. You get the ephod, you put your nose in the book, you get on your knees before the most high God, and you cry out to God, like, what happened to my fire? What happened to my passion? What happened to my zeal unto you, and will you please help me reclaim it? And God is faithful. He's going to tell you to go and take territory. [00:40:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that a lot. The next part of reclaim is kind of right here. We're sitting in it naturally flows is reclaiming your heart before the Lord and also reclaiming your land, which I'm identifying as your family, your children, identifying your neighborhoods, your territories. Right. The land where you work, the road you drive on. Right. I mean, this is the land in which we live. Reclaiming our land, however that looks, however the future plays out, whether we're in the end times or I look at it like, yeah, there's a lot of end times, mile markers and signage out there that we can see and point to, but I also call it our times. And I don't mean ours like, it's not God's, but this is our time in which we're the living right now in the earth. [00:40:59] Speaker B: It's our generation. [00:41:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Whether it's the end times or not, there are still certain things that need to be reclaimed because I'm just getting tired of everywhere we turn, there's evil and there's just very few standing now. It seems like there's more and more standing, but those numbers aren't as generous as I'd like them to be. And so we're appealing to the men. We're doing the hard work. I mean, dude, it's like, create a ministry, create an outreach that is aimed at men. I was like, oh, that's cool. And then I got into it, and you launch it and deploy it, and everybody's guys are yawning distracted with all other kinds of stuff and pursuits and even wealth. And success is a distraction. If you're not using it to advance the kingdom of God, we're calling you into what are you doing with your family? We have a video inside of the app that we just released not too long ago called The Quiver. You can search the app and find it. It's a four minute video, and it's a challenge of, like, who's in your quiver and whose quiver are you in? What arrows of the next generation are in your quiver, whether that's your blood sons and daughters or your spiritual sons and daughters, we need men to reclaim their land or reclaiming their families. Like, who are you turning your heart towards in the next generation? To actually pour into them and invest into them and to help them be better than you are. Help them succeed in ways that are greater than what you've achieved and what you've accomplished. And so we have a lot of work to do in this area. We have a lot of work to do because this is also called discipleship. I mean, there's a lot of things that kind of goes the scripture is very clear that the church is a cross pollinating church when it comes to the ages. When it comes to the age breakdowns and categories, one of the most funny things I think is in the Bible is that the older women are supposed to be teaching the younger women how to love their husbands. I think that's so funny to me. It's like there's an older woman who's been married for probably two or three or four decades maybe, teaching the young woman, who maybe is just a year or two into her marriage, and she's frustrated. I just think of that picture of her coming alongside, going, honey, it's okay. Just love him. I'm going to teach you how to love this man. [00:43:17] Speaker B: And that goes with what we just read out of the Scriptures that David encouraged himself in the the. He made himself get brave and courageous and go after the enemy. And some people think you can't teach or you can't just stir these things up, just like the verse that you use out of Titus. I think it's Titus, chapter three, where it says that the aged women should teach the younger women to love. How many people thought, like, love can be taught? I thought love. I'm just walking down the street, and I see a blonde bombshell and love just slaps me upside the face, and all of a sudden, I want to go, Chase. What? That's what our idea of love is. And here Paul comes along, and he says, no, Titus, you teach know. You can teach bravery. You can teach courage, because those things are already on the inside of you. And so you need to stir those things up, and so you can teach your heart to be passionate about the things of God and to take back what needs to be taken back. You made that commentary about the end times. Whether it is or it ain't. I'll say this. It's my end time. This is the last end time I'm living in. And so I'm treating the era that I live in as if it's my end times. And that means I am going to do what the Lord asked me to do, which is to go into all the world and take back what belongs to Him by conquest and make disciples of many nations, and specifically until the nations of this world become the nations of our God. And so I'm not just going to go hide in my bomb shelter and eat Spam and drink bottled water, waiting for the Antichrist to come and destroy my family. [00:45:05] Speaker A: That's a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea. I'm a prepper. What are you prepping for? You're prepping to waste away? Run out of your last cheesets? [00:45:19] Speaker B: A lot of this is just preparing through fear to lose. And that's not who I am. I'm not going to prepare to lose. I know that Jesus Christ has already won the battle. He's already won the victory. And so I am going into a place that I know belongs to me, just like the children of Israel. They went into the promised land. They didn't go into some land. They went into the Promised land. It was already given to them before they got there. Just like our nation, our time, your family, your marriage, it's already been given to you before you get there. And it changes the philosophy of how you do this. [00:46:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it's living in the covenant promises and being a person who, like David, is willing to step in on the to. I've always looked at that story as David was willing. He would rather die fighting Goliath than live like the cowards he had seen. He had seen strong men in the army become. He walked that's the scene he walked into. And then his own brother Eliab, or however you say his know, they I've heard different pronunciations, but there he is, right when David decides to do something about it, accusing him to be but I've experienced that, too. Just taking a stand against tyranny or taking a stand for biblical masculinity. The things the Bible says we're supposed to be bold and courageous about, I've had that, too. Oh, you think you're this or you think you're that, or people point their fingers at you or the greatest insult is to call me a nationalist. I'm like, Whatever, dude. I use the analogy of, like, if you walked out, say you're at a gas station, you walked out the door and there's a man abusing a woman or raping her off to the side where it's dark, maybe it's nighttime, what are you going to do? You're going to be like most of our culture today and just pull your cell phone out and get a good video shot, viral video of it. Right. [00:47:24] Speaker B: So you can make money? [00:47:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Are you going to go get like, I may not be able to stop that guy, but he'll know I was involved. I can guarantee that. Anytime I get into if I were to get a fight, I don't claim to be the toughest guy out there. I'm not a Navy Seal, not one of those kind of guys, but I'm not the weakest man out there. And if I get involved, you'll know, I was, uh but that's the thing is, the analogy is, I think, great, because the urgency of the gas station idea, I've got to get involved and I got to go now. My heart rate is up. I'm going to go stop this man from abusing this lady. And it's the same analogy of what's happened in our country. It's just spread out, like Steve said, over 40 years. And because we're 40 years into watching the woman get beat, it made us dull. We don't know how to get involved. We're shell shocked. And so we've got to reclaim the land. We've got to reclaim the land. I mean, the other day, I was driving through Rockford. I was on a back road headed to a hospital to visit a family. And I was in a curvy road. Not like a curvy road where you want to take a Corvette down and test the corners. Not that curvy, but there's these double yellow lines where you're not supposed to pass, and some kid just comes out and goes around me. And I didn't know as a kid. I don't know who it was. And it made me ticked. I was it was 30 miles speed limit. I started thinking, what if my wife was driving down this road? If my daughters were driving down this road, and there's some freaking little I just assume he's a young punk. I don't know who he is. But then I get up to the I get up to the stop sign. I lay my horn down on him. I turn left. He turns left. Now I'm side by side with him. I roll my window down, and he's a young black kid in the car. And I'm sitting there ready for whatever conflict is going to come my way. I'm a little steamed. I'm a little ticked. So I'm like, bro, what are you driving like this for? What's your problem? And he pops off back at me, but I think he's getting feisty with me. And he was actually keeping everything super calm. And I learned that about three more seconds in. I said, what did you say to me? And he was like, oh, was that wrong? Was that wrong? Should I not drive that way? And I said, yeah, that's wrong. You should not drive that way. I said, that's an unsafe way to drive, and you shouldn't do that. And he just goes, I'm sorry, man. I won't do that anymore. And I was just shocked. I was like and then I told him, I said and I just looked at said I said, I'm good with that. I like your response. I go, I'm good with that. And then I said, my name is Brian. What's your name? And we talked for a minute or two till the light turned green. But that's one of those things where we have to get involved. We can't just let society live whatever way they want to live. There has to be accountability. So that's an accountability at a streetlight, right? There needs to be accountability everywhere we go. We need to be willing to have these tough conversations and confront people when they need to be confronted. I'm one of those guys, and maybe I am wired that way. It's in my nature, whatever. But I think sometimes you just have to do things afraid. So I'm asking you guys to reclaim your land, reclaim your kids. How often do you pray for your wives? How often do you pray for your children? Like, just keeping them in prayer? How often do you pray for the children that you don't know that walk to the bus stop that go past your house? I'm talking about getting involved in prayer, engaging the spiritual battle of prayer, going after the heart of God in prayer and declaring things over your neighborhoods. And maybe, Steve, we should make another podcast just on maybe what it means to reclaim in the place of prayer and maybe take guys through the scriptures and take them through declarations and take them through maybe resource them in another episode. If you want to do that, I'd be willing to do that. But anyway, reclaiming your heart before God, it's a personal thing between you and the Lord and then reclaiming your land, getting involved, shaking the dullness off, going after the school boards and the school districts. I mean, it's insane what's going on. It's insane what's going on out there. We only need, like, another million men involved. That's all. Just another million, because we don't even have a million men right now, probably involved across this whole country. And the last area of reclaiming is actually learning how to square your shoulders off, to goliath. You have to face your goliath. And I'm talking about in your personal life, in your family, in all three of these categories. And then in the land in which we live, we've got to face that ishtar spirit of jezebel. We have to face off with it, man. We have to stand and fight it. And that means in a physical way and a spiritual way. I mean, we physically have to take voice and take action against this spirit of insanity. And so the scriptures say that we overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb, the word of our testimony, the blood of the Lamb, and loving our lives, not unto death. So we have to be willing to actually be martyred for what we believe as that time frame comes into the earth. I'd rather be martyred for standing up for what I believe than die eating twinkies in a hole somewhere with more rounds than my gun can shoot. [00:52:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And along that line, my name is Steven. It's S-T-E-P-H-E-N is my official given name, and I was named after the first martyr of the this is this is something that's really alive on the inside of me. I've known since a little boy. I got born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, and was laying hands on the sick at five years old. So at five years old, I was all in with the kingdom. And I've known my whole life that my name is Stephen, and I have something going for me that sometimes the average guy doesn't, which I've known my whole life, that I'm dying for Jesus. Now, I'm not saying that I'm looking for a chance to be martyred by society. [00:53:29] Speaker A: I'm not signing up for it. [00:53:30] Speaker B: No, but I'm just saying I knew that I was named after a person who living for Christ was more important than dying slowly over 80 years for living for the world. And here's the amazing part. The word martyr comes from the Greek word Martyrio or martyrs. And that is the word in Acts, chapter one, verse eight, where Jesus told his disciples to go and wait until you're empowered from on high in the upper room in Jerusalem. And he said, and you will be my witnesses unto the world. And the word witness is the word martyr. He said, you're going to be my martyrs. So we're supposed to be living martyrs, not dying martyrs. Living martyrs. We should live dead, live as if what we have died for is all the dying that we're going to do. There's nothing that society can ever take from us. And when we do that now, we're a force that is, we cannot be dealt with by society. They can't fear you, they can't scare you, they can't dull you, they can't lethargic you whatever you got, they can't do that because you've already lived dead. You're a living martyr for the cause of Christ. [00:55:01] Speaker A: And the key to living, the way Steve just described is being anchored in the word of God. I mean, you don't just read a verse a day and get this kind of strength. We're talking about spending hours with know, loving God like you desire to be with God. You're not just checking off a list and so anchoring yourself. I mean, I love the disciples. One of the key things of all the things they could ask Christ, one of the key things they asked him was teach us how to pray. Teach us to pray. We hear you pray and we're dull. We need to learn to pray the way you pray. And so we've seen you love the Father. We want to be like that. So don't be ashamed. Don't be filled with guilt. A lot of where the men in this culture are, we've been in a snare and we can free ourselves from that snare because we have the power, the spiritual power to do so. But some guys think, oh, well, I've missed too many years too late or this or that. Don't put an excuse there. We're asking you to reclaim your heart before God. Get busy reclaiming the land and then now go face, you have to face goliath with us guys. We need you to face them, face these spirits, square off with your personal struggles and then bring that into the battlefield of our current day and age. We need you on the battlefield, men. We need you to face goliath with us with bold and courageous heart like David Had. I'd rather die fighting this goliath than live like these cowards on the sidelines. The life of a coward is no life at all. That's the life of torture. That's the life of shame. That's the life of guilt. The life of a warrior who dies in battle is a life of honor. It's a life of valor. It's what young men, it's what men in general want to emulate. It's what they want to be like. It's what they want to follow. And so we need those types of men to rise up again in the earth. We're calling our men and graysops and as many men as we can sound the alarm to to reclaim your heart before God and face your and our. [00:57:06] Speaker B: Society is desperately short of heroes. Desperately short. I mean, we're so short, we're looking at cartoons and fake women with CGI. And that is a derivative of the fact that the Godly men have not embraced who they are. And here's the thing. You cannot give away what you don't have. You cannot give away what you don't have. And so to become a hero, to embrace that identity in you, that mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory, which is the hero in you, in order to become that hero, you have to start with being a hero for yourself before God. And then you become a hero for your wife, and then you become a hero for your family, your children, and then you become a hero to your local church in your neighborhoods, and then you become like a national hero. But until you start that process, which is a hero before God, a man of integrity, a man of character, a man of Godly biblical masculinity that is becoming a hero before God. It says in Psalms, I think it's 37 or 35, this is God quoting. He says that the Godly people in the land, they are my true heroes, the Godly people in the land. You can be a hero for God, and you have to be a hero for God before you can ever become a hero for your wife, your children, your family, your neighborhood, your society. And so I'm challenging you to be a hero of God, to be a Godly person, a Godly man, a biblical, Godly masculine man. Embrace it and let the Lord develop those characters that are already deposited on the inside of you. [00:59:00] Speaker A: Yeah, we want to be the kind of men that when I don't know, I have four daughters, and when they look at me like, dad, what are you going to do about it? I want them to at least know that there's a man that they can go to that is going to do something biblically accurate about the problem at hand. And so I've been able to put that on display with my kids time and time again. And they know that of all my great attributes and characteristics and even my faults, they know that they can depend on dad to do something about it. I'll never forget a story as we close this episode out, I'll never forget the story of well, it's a hard story to talk a little bit about because it was a gentleman in the LGBTQ community, and he had shared with me how when he was younger, this terrible molestation had happened. Of someone that lived in the neighborhood down and around the corner at a local business. And I'll never forget the look on this adult man's face now who's been struggling in this lifestyle. Never forget the look on his face when he looked at me in tears and he said, do you know what it felt like when I went and told my father? I went back home and told my father, this guy's young. He's probably like six or seven. He goes, I told my father what happened. And my father looked at me and said, well, what am I supposed to do about it? And we don't want to be that father. We don't want to be that dull, cult coward. I don't know. There's a lot going on in our world, and we don't want to be. That's not our response. I remember hugging that man in tears and just telling him I loved him. And it's like, I wish I could go back and be your father for you in that hour, because there'd be one more or less one person would not be breathing anymore. I don't know how that would happen, but I just know or something, they would fall down the stairs or something. But I can't imagine a child looking to the one thing that's supposed to save him, right? The one thing that protects him and provides. And there's a generation of children out there that are fatherless and are looking to guys like us, like, what are we going to do about the powers of the air? What are you to going do about the goliaths that are taunting right now? And I'm just making this appeal, and I know it's not like this happy feeling as we leave this episode all jazzed up. It's heavy because that's where this problem is. It's heavy, and it's a real thing, and we really need to evaluate ourselves. And I'm making an appeal to you to step on the battlefield and reclaim these things. [01:01:59] Speaker B: And the answer that that young man should have had for his father was do something. Doing nothing is what got us here. This is what got us in this situation to where our families are being destroyed, our children are being targeted by groomers and all this stuff. What got us here was doing nothing. So do something. I honestly believe that even if you do something wrong, but you do it with the right heart, with the right intention unto God that he can correct you. It's kind of like the analogy of a ship. If a ship's not moving, you can turn the rudder 360 degrees, it don't do nothing. But if the ship's moving, even if it's moving slowly, or if it's moving the wrong direction a little bitty, rudder can change the direction of that ship and get it right. And so do something. Whatever it is, do something. Go to God. Do something. Do it from a pure heart. Do it from a place of repentance. Do it from a place of prayer. Do something and God will have the ability to turn your ship. [01:03:07] Speaker A: That's right. Well, Steve, as always, it's great to have you on the podcast. We'll have you on again soon. Until next time, live upright.