Welcome, friends, to Generations Kevin Swanson, your host with you today, and we are going to address the heart of the issue today, the point at which the enemy is most aggressive in tearing apart the family and the church to a great extent in our day. We are up against this man-worshiping existentialism, humanism, modern liberalism, feminism, egalitarianism, all of the isms. And they've effectively put a gun to the head of the family and pulled the trigger over and over and over again. It is a massive attack on the family, but also human society, civilization as we know it. The impact upon family and church over the last three to four generations has been beyond anything I think any civilization has seen in the history of mankind. I do not believe I'm exaggerating on this issue. The human heart is already self-centered, self-destructive, bent on destroying family life. But uh our institutions have enabled, encouraged, funded, cheerleaded, and done everything they can possibly do to destroy the nation, to destroy the family, to destroy the foundations of civilization. So what we're talking about here is not just restoring common grace to a nation. We're talking about here is seeking the special grace of God upon our churches and our families in this generation. Now, the attack on the family has been five prongs, and I'm going to get to a conference, a very important conference coming up here in just a few months, in just a second. But uh but the the the destruction agenda for this has been to first destroy family integrity by wiping out the family economy. Secondly, destroying fatherhood uh by you name it, uh the entire socioeconomic system, welfare programs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, destroying motherhood uh by releasing women from dependence on the family, making them dependent on the state, feminism, all the rest, destroying marriage by easy divorce, by perverting it with a burger fell. And all this accomplished between 1968 and 2015. And then finally, uh the agenda has been to destroy sexuality by thorough saturation and pornography access and, of course, mass production of homosexuality as we have seen in the last generation. So, friends, I'm looking at four prongs to the destruction of the family in our day. And don't tell me it hasn't affected the churches. It's seeped into the church. The ideologies of this self-centered, self-worshipping idea of sexuality or or the way in which we run family, the way family integrity has been destroyed, father has been destroyed, mother has been destroyed, marriage's been destroyed, sexuality has been destroyed. The whole thing's been destroyed over just the last 40 years. In my lifetime, since I was born in 1964, this this is when it's happened. The ideologies of feminism and existentialism and egalitarianism has, and of course, easy divorce and all the rest has been uh uh mass-produced in this society in just the last uh what 61 years since I was born in 1964. So, so that's effectively my lifetime. Okay, that's what's happened in my lifetime. That's that's the bad news. But the good news is by God's grace, Jesus can fix this. And and this is where we go when we when we bring out the zeitgeist and what the damage has been done to family, church, human civilization, we come back to this, that that Jesus can fix this. And and only by the redemption of Jesus Christ and the restoration of life, spiritual life in the human heart, beginning with the gospel of Jesus Christ, um, this can be fixed. But we again are going to have to face off the antithesis. We're gonna have to go after the enemy, we're gonna have to express truth from the pulpit, we're gonna have to call people to repentance, and we're going to have to equip the man and the woman of God to every good work in a society that is dead set against the principles of God's law word. So that's it. Uh, that's what the conference is all about. I'm trying to summarize a conference coming up here on uh May 7th through 9th in uh Ridgecrest uh out in uh uh North Carolina. Scott Brown is the uh director of biblical uh this conference, biblical manhood and womanhood conference coming up, and also uh he is the director for churchandfamily.com. Scott Brown, welcome back uh to the program, my friends. Always good to have you uh with us.
SPEAKER_00Kevin, it's always great to be with you. I'm so thankful to be on here. Yeah, we're doing this conference, manhood and womanhood, the glory of God in the creation order. And we're really coming together to do a number of things. We want to do battle, uh, we want to encourage families, but we also want to cast really a beautiful vision for manhood and womanhood across the various jurisdictions. And here's here's what we believe. Uh we believe that this is the greatest battle of our time. Yeah. Uh the church has always faced great battles. You know, in the first century, you know, it was the Judaizers, you know, in in the third century it was Trinitarianism, in the 16th century, it was justification by faith. Uh, today I think it's a battle over creation. It's a really a battle over the creation order. Yeah. You know, what has God done in the creation of man and woman? And we really want to paint a beautiful picture of this glorious way that God has created men and women and how they interact and how they function in the world, you know, from you know, from young people all the way up to old people, uh, manhood and womanhood. We're really excited about it.
SPEAKER_01You're very much aware of the destruction that's you know happened all around us, right? I mean, you see the smoking cities, right? And you've I mean, nobody that isn't, you know, been around in the last couple of years are not going to not deny that there has been utter destruction to sexuality, manhood, womanhood, the family marriage, you know. I mean, hey, it's it's smoking. But what you're saying is that that this can be restored. And uh, and and we can be planting gardens in the ashes, and we can see uh a beautiful thing happening uh through the Christian church.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's because we have been given a perfect testimony. We've been given a sufficient scripture to guide our lives, and it really is life-giving. You know, you drink of scripture and you're drinking of the waters of life. That's what happens when people really embrace the biblical vision. So our efforts of rebuilding the culture really begin with the church and the family. That's our whole focus at church and family life. We believe that the two most pivotal discipleship institutions and evangelistic institutions are the church on the one hand and the family. And we're here to say that manhood and womanhood is displayed as a manifestation of the creation order, both in the church and the family, and also in the state. We'll have we'll be addressing that as well. Uh, there are there are many people who believe that you can have biblical manhood and womanhood in the church and the family, but not so much in the state. Well, we believe in all three jurisdictions are covered by the creation order, and these things were established before the fall. The creation order is not a function of the fall. Uh you know, authority and submission was not created after uh after the fall, it was created before the fall. It's the way that God designed uh men and women to find Scott.
SPEAKER_01Do you believe the church can be reformed, revived, renewed without the renewal of family uh marriage, womanhood, manhood, according to the biblical model? Can the church be reformed if the family is not reformed?
SPEAKER_00No, it cannot because it's it's a reformation from the ground up. Uh God's people that He created, they learn from the time that they're born. They're raised up in a family, and then they are part of another family, a second family, the Church of Jesus Christ. One of the reasons you have unhealthy churches is because you have unhealthy families. Uh people are injected into the church out of their families, and uh they don't know how to be a family. They don't know how to function according to God's design. So, no, that there I don't believe you'll have a reformation of the church without a reformation of the family. That's why you what what you see in the great revivals, uh you see the ones that sustain, uh like like the Protestant Reformation, that was a revival that kept on rolling. And it and the reformers understood that the family needed to be reformed. What most people don't understand is while uh Calvin and Luther uh were uh reforming the doctrine of justification by faith, they were also reforming the family. Luther and Calvin's household transformed family life in Reformation Europe. And Reformation Europe was in big trouble. Thirty per 25% of the population had taken vows of celibacy in Reformation Europe. And the reformers, you know, Calvin and Luther said, No, you need to go out and get married and and actually have a family for the glory of God. You saw the same thing in the Puritan era uh during that revival during the Puritan era. What do you see? You see dozens and dozens of books coming out on family life. I have many of them in my library. Uh praise God for Joel Beaky, who will be at the conference, uh, who has who's published many of them, and uh we work together to publish uh some of those titles. And um but revivals that don't include the the restoration of the family, they don't sustain because you need to have a generation who is taught uh when when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up. And when you have that in a home, you actually produce for the church a people that are very different. And that's that's why elders have to manage know how to manage their households well.
SPEAKER_01Scott, um, let's take this apart just for a moment. Obviously, we're gonna equip the man, the woman of God to every good work over three days of conferencing. Uh so there's a lot coming up. And by the way, a youth conference as well as a pastor's conference associated with this conference, uh, May 7th through 9th, coming up here in just a few months in Ridgecrest out in North Carolina. But uh the take it apart, summarize it just for a second. What is it to have a reformed biblical manhood? What does that look like?
SPEAKER_00Let me just back up for a second. Uh you called it a youth conference. It's actually a singles conference. We've do we've been doing this for several years to bring single people together where and we teach them uh and we hope that many of them get get to know each other. Every year, couples come up to me and may show they show me their rings and they met at our conference at Ridgegrass. Uh we're also having a pastors conference as a pre-conference. And um so the singles conference and the pastors pre-conference happen right before the main conference uh on May 7th.
SPEAKER_01So, Scott, what what does uh biblical manhood look like? Can you synopsize it as as best as you obviously we can't go on for an hour, but what what's the vision here for manhood?
SPEAKER_00I mean, God God has established manhood for the purpose of I'm I will just break it down to uh authoritative love. God has designed men to lead, to be heads after the pattern of Jesus Christ, who's the head of the church. Right. And that headship, that leadership is qualified by love. You know, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. So uh the husband, the head, the the patriarchy. The patriarchy is really about nourishing and cherishing and washing women, taking care of them and blessing them and leading them. That's biblical manhood. And I think we should bring back the word patriarchy because it's actually a biblical word. We shouldn't be afraid of it. Well, what kind of patriarchy is it? Well the the the singular patriarch is Jesus Christ himself, uh and God the Father who is full of compassion. So manhood, you know, includes headship, authority, leadership, and and and and womanhood uh of course, you know, includes uh helping of a husband, uh submitting to a husband, uh you know, governing the house. I like the way you talk about it, Kevin. You call her the home despot. You know, she she's actually the governor of the home. Tremendous, you know, tremendous authority exercised in the home, you know, by by a woman in the house. So we should train our children to be men and women the way that God has designed them.
SPEAKER_01For a moment, Scott, let's talk about what pastors can do to bring about a reformation of biblical manhood, biblical womanhood. They need to speak directly to this issue. Um, and do past do you think peace pastors have a responsibility to speak to the sins of women and to the sins of men? Is is this something they should hold their brothers and sisters in the church accountable to?
SPEAKER_00Well, of course, yeah, they should speak to the sins of both men and women. When when a pastor is speaking about the sins of women, there needs to be a particular uh self-conscious care because that man who's preaching needs to recognize the jurisdictional uh authority that uh that woman's husband has, and he should be careful not to usurp his authority. So I think there for one thing should be a particular care. It's kind of like uh, you know, if if you if you call out and criticize somebody's child in a sermon, you know, the whole family is gonna be be upset because you you can't talk about my child, and you can't uh uh in the same way you can't talk about my wife like that. But there are particular sins of women and and those do need to be addressed. Um the Bible is very explicit about particular sins of women, and many of the sins of women are sins of men as well, like vainglory, like uh being domineering and as opposed to having a gentle and a quiet spirit, um, moving conversations to have to create unnecessary divisions. Um, the Bible speaks about the the tongue of woman, covetousness, sexual manipulation. Uh you have self-righteous women self-righteous woman in Proverbs 30 verse 20. You have pleasure-seeking women, uh, you know, in 1 Timothy 5 and 6. There are all kinds of women who are profiled in the Bible. You have gullible women in 2 Timothy 3.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Um in in 2 Timothy 3 6, you have a woman who never changes. Um, you know, you have contentious women, you have alluring women, but you know, you the their companion sins of men as well. We're as as preachers, we're much more comfortable, you know, directing our comments toward the sins of men. We're far more comfortable. Why is that? But men men are often afraid to address the sins of women. Uh the blowback. I think they're afraid of the blowback. Okay. And uh every every woman knows that they are sinners. But we've created such a feminist culture where where women can do no wrong. Women are never women are never wrong. And uh you know, husbands have a di have difficult times often correcting uh their wives. You know, William Gouge, in his in the book that we publish with Reformation Heritage with Joel Beakey, he actually talks about addressing the sins of women. He has a very brilliant section on that uh about the forthrightness on the other on the one hand and and also the gentleness and the care and the patience and the kindness, you know, that all of that needs to be engaged. So he, you know, back in in the 17th century, you know, he's urging husbands to deal with the sins of their wives and urging wives to understand that that's the right thing for men to do. But it's hard to find men who will address the sins of their wives. And often that's because of pride, pride in the woman and also fear in the man.
SPEAKER_01Do you agree with that? You know, it's it's strange because my wife is quite acceptant. You know, I say, no, of course you don't do it in the middle of a big, you know, like she's all stressed out and I'm all stressed out, and it's probably not the right time to bring out some, you know, specific sin issue. But but if it's just us sitting around the word and I say, honey, I think you struggle with this kind of thing, and she is at 100% acceptant of that. So, you know, I haven't really had that with my wife. Um, but I understand that some men do, and that's an issue. And feminism has been a massive problem for the church as well as for everywhere else. So so I guess that's my experience. What what what about your experience, God?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, I I I have a wife who listens to me, and um my wife is nearly sinless. But um but but I but I have I have seen men uh really unable to speak to their wives because they they fear a big a big blow up. But but part of the problem is also that men often don't know how to talk to their wives about critical difficult matters. I I know as pastors we we see this all the time. Husbands and wives, they don't know how to talk. They don't know how to have a a consequential conversation. And they just do, they just make mistakes that actually the Bible speaks to uh in their conversation. So I think part of the problem is if you never learned how to talk, if you never learned how to have a difficult conversation when you were growing up, like your parents didn't teach you to have a difficult conversation. And so what you do is you blow your top, you know, you start, your face turns red, and you make you make all the mistakes that people can make in a conversation that the Bible actually addresses.
SPEAKER_01So give us some tips. I know you've got a little booklet on that that goes directly to it, but just a f a few tips off the top here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a little book called Having Difficult Conversations. But I think the first thing to recognize is that um a a conversation is a fruit. It's a it's a fruit of something else going on underneath the surface. It's a tip of an iceberg, and it really is it's either a fruit of the spirit or it's a fruit of the flesh. So uh, you know, the the the first thing that we have to recognize is that our conversations are going to be a manifestation of what's what's going on, you know, inside. And so I think we have to understand that. We have to understand what the harmful communication patterns are, and the Bible addresses all of them, like interrupting, like contradicting, like uh focus on winning. Once you focus on winning, you've already lost the conversation. Uh blaming, name-calling, sullenness, walking out of a conversation, um, lying, aggression, red in the face, those kinds of things, those are not helpful at all. And that's that's why people need to learn actually learn how to talk. And the first thing they need to do is prepare their hearts. Um, you know, Jesus said that you know, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So to have a difficult conversation, we first have to really come before the Lord and and guard our hearts and ask the Lord to help us with the meditations of our hearts. I think we have to be on a mission to bless instead of uh a mission to nail your spouse or nail your friend, your church member. Um that you you know, Peter says, you know, that you were created for a blessing. He says you were called for this that you may inherit a blessing. And then he says, If if you if you want to love life and see good days, then refrain your tongue from speaking evil. So you have to you have to set yourself on a course for blessing rather than cursing and and and and and and actually winning, like I said before.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's interesting. Um, I I I double check myself and say, is this about me? Is this a self-centered thing first? Secondly, do I love God? Am I in this for God? Is is it you know, am I God-centered in this? Am I concerned for his truth, for his honor in my home? Um, you know, is is am I am I the big God-like thing offended by whatever just happened? Or am I concerned that God has been offended by what is happening in my home? So the God-centeredness helps. And then the third thing for me is to just simply ask myself, do I love this person? You know, this difficult person in the church, or maybe it's, you know, with my wife. Maybe I've got some irritation here. Do I really love my wife or do I love my daughter? Do I love my son right now? Which means do I really want the best? I really care and really want them to overcome, the overcomers, uh, really, you know, win in this. I I want I want to be the winning coach that just is there to encourage, yes, but to correct and to, you know, I'm on their team, so to speak. And those are the sorts of things that I think have helped me the most, Scott.
SPEAKER_00And in order to do that, you have to prepare yourself to listen, yeah. To to hear what you know, what the other person is saying. You know, that's why Solomon said he answers uh matter before he hears it. It's folly and it's a shame to him. Uh learning how to listen, learning how to ask questions is really helpful. We want to we want to interrupt, we want to jump in, we want to tell our part of the story. We can't wait, we can't wait to let the story come out. We can't let there be a pause and let that other person maybe keep talking. Um and so interrupting is always really, really harmful. And and but that's part of loving. You know, to love someone is is to listen. And and men particularly, you know, can hard have a hard time because we want to get down to the point. You know, we we we want to get down to the bottom line. And men have to learn how to listen to you know, the cont and the trajectories and even maybe some of the meanderings that a wife might have. And I know every woman is not like this, but you know, but women think differently than men. They do. Um men think very didactically and get it done, and and and women are triangulating across a whole bunch of other categories. So a lot of times they just need to be heard. That's why, you know, the classic problem of almost every man is his wife comes to him with a problem and he gives her a three-point solution to fix it forever. And she doesn't care. She wants she just wanted to know that he was listening to her and that he cared about her. He she didn't want him to fix it. She just wanted him to be her husband.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's good. Well, practical solutions, friends, we're not just cursing the darkness here, want to light some candles. And and that's what this conference is all about coming up. I mean, obviously, we're up against uh you know, feminism and all these uh enemy isms that have done so much damage to the to the way we think and the way we respond and the way family is done or marriage is done in the present day. But uh what we want is a biblical solution, biblical solutions to manhood, womanhood, husband, wife, marriage, and to prepare our sons and daughters to be those godly men and godly women to that end. And that's going to be something of my focus in my act like men uh presentation at the conference as well, to focus in on how to prepare our young men to be like Jesus, really, ultimately. That's the message, which is what Brother Scott just mentioned. Uh what is it to be Jesus, to be like Jesus as uh the husband, the father in the home? So that that's the question. And we want to uh we want to unpack that and equip the man and the woman of God for every good work at this upcoming conference. Scott, any last uh comments on the conference coming up May 7th?
SPEAKER_00Well, there's there's nothing there's nothing more powerful in the right sense of the ma of the of the word to find a man who submitted to God and he's and he's becoming like Jesus Christ. He's becoming like the true man. Yeah. And there's nothing more stately, there's nothing more beautiful than the woman who trusts in God. And her trust isn't really in her husband, her trust is in God, and so she could submit to her husband as an intermediary, she can know that God is gonna protect her. Yeah, but there's nothing more powerful than a man and a woman like that. And I've you know, it's funny, the most stately women I've ever known are women who are submissive to their husbands because they're so calm, they're so confident, and they're not they're not made crazy by what's going on around them because they trust in God.
SPEAKER_01Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Um yeah, amen to that. Amen. Well, friends, the biblical manhood and womanhood conference scheduled for May 7th through 9th out in Ridgecrest up in North Carolina. Please uh sign up now at Churchandfamilife.com. My understanding is it's filling up fast. In fact, Scott, you said off air that this is like the the the biggest conference thus far in 10 years. So friends, you need to check this out now at churchandfamilylife.com. Don't forget the singles conference. I think it's the day before, if I'm not mistaken, and also the pastors conference as well. So that's churchandfamilylife.com to sign up for the Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Conference. And with me Scott Brown, who is the director for Church and Family Life.com. Thank you, Scott. Thank you for joining us today on Generations. Always appreciate you.
SPEAKER_00You're welcome. Uh come and hear Kevin Swanson preach on Act Like Men. It's gonna be a great news.
SPEAKER_01And that's uh ChurchandfamilyLife.com. And this is Kevin Swanson and Scott Brown inviting you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. This has been a production of the Generations Media Network. For more information, go to generations.org/slash media.