Biblically based “manhood” is largely rejected in Western cultures once blessed with the light of Christianity. The spirit of apostasy, which gives up God and His truth, has hastened this rejection of Scriptural principles regarding manhood.
Wherever men have cast aside God’s Word and wisdom, the result has been sorrow and confusion. Rejection of Biblical principles of manhood has brought terrible destruction to families and marriages. Men begin to act as “brute beasts.” Women demand and usurp the man’s place of headship while increasing numbers of mothers allow unborn babies to be murdered by abortion. Godlessness characterizing every part of Western society has darkened cultures once enlightened by His truth.
Enemy Effectiveness
Satan’s most deadly and effective tools of attack on manhood established by God are threefold: (1) philosophies of feminism, (2) tolerance of homosexual lifestyles and (3) men themselves relinquishing their place of headship and responsibility.
Suffering Spheres
Marriages, families and assemblies because they are spheres ordained by God for mankind’s blessing-suffer unrelenting attacks of the enemy. And we must sadly admit that Satan has been very successful in his attacks. (1) More and more husbands no longer fill—nor understand—their role as “saviour of the body.” (2) Fathers increasingly abdicate their personal responsibility as spiritual heads in their homes. (3) Even in the assembly there seems to be little understanding of or interest in brothers accepting responsibility. The result? Rather than flourishing, local assemblies flounder and wither away.
May God grant to brothers and sisters an “understanding of the times” in which we live and a fresh desire of heart to faithfully fulfill their Biblical roles. Only in this way will we, by God’s grace, keep our sons from becoming moral eunuchs and our daughters from being morally defiled in this evil world.
Divine Warning
There is a most solemn warning concerning the willful changing of gender roles found in Deuteronomy 22:55The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. (Deuteronomy 22:5): “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.”
The moral application is plain. A garment characterizes its wearer. It is abomination (perhaps the strongest such word found in Scripture) to God if a woman, by her conduct, is characterized as a man, or a man, by his conduct, is characterized as a woman.
Understanding and acting according to God’s thoughts empowers men and women to properly fulfill their God-given spheres of responsibility. May we all be exercised to submit to and act on the precious truths God has given us in His Word!
Ed. Note: Lord willing, the subject of “manhood” will be continued in future issues.
Ed.