Chapter 7 - Masculinity is Embracing Our Leadership Role
“Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?” (1 Corinthians 9:5). Anyone who has one person following them is a leader. Anyone who influences another person is a leader. Thus, we are all leaders.
All men are both the image and glory of God. Women are not. Therefore we are to be the reflection of the true God to this world. Our example either leads people to God or pushes them away.
Leadership, then, is the necessity of setting a good example . It is preaching by practice rather than by words. What we do speaks so loudly that people can not hear what we say. Our walk talks, and our talk talks, but our walk talks louder than our talk talks. God expects men to lead. Almost without exception, all the patriarchs, prophets, priests, judges, kings, nethinims, porters, watchmen, soldiers, pastors, princes, apostles, disciples, deacons, teachers, writers, evangelists, and doorkeepers of the Bible were men.
One of the signs that a country has gone apostate and is under God’s judgment is children oppressing men, and women ruling over them. Such was the description in Isaiah’s day when Israel was under God’s judgement and men would not be men:
“The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint...Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.” (Isaiah 1:1-5, 11-12).
This is backward, but it is what happens in a society when men will not be men. It appears as though our country is heading in this direction, as women are becoming more masculine and men more feminine.
When men neglect their God-given responsibility to lead, someone must take their place. In adulthood that leaves the women.
The children who by nature look up to men become disoriented in life. Absentee fathers and leaders couple with doting mothers produce an effeminate class of men. This is out of God’s order.
Children need masculine men to look up to. Men who recognize their call to leadership as their most important role. Men who acknowledge their job to influence the next generation. Every generation must be taught the ways of God by the men who are living. Men must set the example. How sad to read verses like Judges 2:10: “And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.” Why did this happen? How could Israel, who was only one generation away from Joshua and two generations away from Moses, be apostate and humanistic? First, they knew not the Lord, and second, no one told them of the works that He had done. Who dropped the ball? The men!
May our testimony be more like that of David: “For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption:” (Acts 13:36a). Life is not about us. It is about God and influencing everyone who is following us for good and for God. “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.” (Romans 14:7).
