Why Fathers Matter

SERMON: 2015-06-21--fathers02--why-fathers-matter SOURCE DURATION: 00:52:47.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The material at both the beginning and end of the provided windows constitutes continuous theological exposition and application related to the sermon's main topic. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, this being Father's Day, I want to talk with you a bit this morning about why fathers matter. There was a time, not so long ago, that it wasn't really necessary to talk about that kind of topic because just about everybody knew why fathers mattered. Today that increasingly is not the case because we live in a time of tremendous social change. And that social change as it relates to marriage and the family surfaces in four areas in particular. Let me quickly walk you through those. The first is our understanding of gender and identity, our understanding of gender and identity. Now, there was a time when one of the first questions that couples would ask when a new baby was born, is it a boy or a girl? And it wasn't very hard to tell the difference between the two, generally speaking. Today, that's no longer taken for granted because we have separated the biological sex of a child from their gender. We say the biological sex is determined biologically, but gender, that is to say how a person feels on the inside, is increasingly seen as a social construct. And so now I can have the body of a boy but feel like a girl inside or the body of a girl and feel like a boy on the inside. We call that transgendered. And transgendered has really been in the news, of course, of late, particularly because Bruce Jenner, as you know, has now become Caitlyn Jenner. Bruce Jenner was a man, born a man, a famous athlete in the '76 Olympics, the father, by the way, of six children. And if my memory serves me correctly, professors to be a Christian decided that he really wasn't a man, underwent a sex change, and that has been blasted all over the newspapers and all over the media. Generally, to great acclaim, we live in a day and age of gender and identity confusion. The second area where social change is happening at an incredible pace is in the normalization of homosexuality or same-sex relationships. Until 1973, the American Psychiatric Association considered homosexuality a mental disorder for which people needed to be treated. That year, under intense pressure from homosexual activist groups, with only a fraction of the psychiatrists present, as I understand, at that meeting, they changed that definition and now we live in a world where it's not only not considered a disorder that needs to be treated, but it is now viewed on the same level, some would argue above, heterosexuality. And here is a quote from a Dr. Richard Isay, who is a homosexual activist and a psychoanalyst, because you and I both know that the clock has so turned back or forward, whatever you want to call it, the times have so changed that now the people who need to be treated are not the homosexual folks, but they are the heterosexuals who don't believe that homosexuality is normal. We're called what? Homophobic, which, by the way, is a mental disorder. So here's what Dr. Richard Isay has to say about that. He says, "Homophobia is a psychological abnormality. Those afflicted should be quarantined and denied employment." That's probably the majority of us right here. We live in changing times. The third area where the change is happening in today's society, of course, is in the acceptance of same-sex marriage. It's in the news all the time, because if homosexuality is as normal as heterosexuality, then what can be wrong with two people of the same sex or gender getting married to each other, after all, as Hillary Clinton famously said not too long ago, we need to ask ourselves, how would it feel if it were a crime to love the person that I love? And so, since 2004, beginning in Massachusetts in the United States, 2005 in Canada, same-sex marriage has increasingly become the law of the land. And as I've mentioned to you before, the US Supreme Court now is in the process of holding hearings and are soon expected to reach a conclusion as to whether or not same-sex marriage is a constitutional right that must apply to all the states of the United States. So far, 37 states, I think is the figure, have adopted same-sex marriage, a number of states are holding out. We live in changing times, 59% of the US population currently agrees with same-sex marriage and that is double of that 10 years ago, the times they are changing. Still a fourth area, and that is, of course, the radical restructuring of the family. The same was when most everybody understood that at least ideally the family had a father and a mother, maybe, you know, grandparents or extended family members, that was sort of the normal family unit. Well, today, in social studies, the family is being redefined to the point, whereas one researcher put it, and I thought this was an interesting way of putting it, he said the majority of Americans believe that a family that defines itself as a family is indeed a family. Did you catch that? A family that defines itself as a family is indeed a family. And that means now, of course, we can have two dads, we can have two moms, we don't need to be married. In fact, the traditional model of the family has become extremely rare in North American society. The old definition of a family is a father and a mother married with one or more children. That is now less than 20% of the population in the United States. Troubling, I think. Voices from the extreme fringes of society. We need to understand one to do away with a family altogether, because they see the family as standing in opposition to their agenda of manipulating the whole population. Here's an interesting quote, comes from a journalist by the name of Masha Gessen. She made this comment at an Australian panel discussion back in 2013. Here's what she says. "It's a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we're going to do with marriage when we get there. Because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie." There are voices on the extreme who want to change everything that you and I biblically have taken for granted for thousands and thousands of years. And it is happening at an unprecedented rate. And most of us sitting here this morning will know intuitively there is something wrong about this steamroller that is rolling down the hill. Yet fact of the matter is, we're hard-pressed to stand against it, partly because these issues are not foreign to us. I mean, it's only fair to say that in a community this size, there are some of us who struggle with same-sex attraction. There are some of us who struggle with the concept of marriage. There are some of us who struggle perhaps with gender identity issues. And my experience has been that most Christians don't have any trouble standing for biblical truth until it comes close to home, and then being exposed to the values that are coming at us from society, arguments that are extremely clever, potent, and well-phrased, and images that are ever so sentimental, tugging at the heartstrings. What happens is one after another, the objections disappear, and we get sucked into the vortex of today's society. Wouldn't you agree that that's really what's happening on many levels? Tony Campolo, I mentioned him last week, good case in point, one of the leading voices in the evangelical world, for many years stood his ground. Last week came out in a public statement saying that he favors now same-sex marriage. How did his views change? The Bible hasn't changed. How have his views changed? Well, partly because of the nature of his ministry committed to the last and the lost and the least, but also because it's very close to home. He's got a son who is openly homosexual. He's got a wife, Peggy, who has been in favor of homosexual marriage for a long, long time, and she's introduced him to her homosexual same-sex married couples. And that exposure has brought him to a point that when the church excludes homosexual same-sex marriage behavior, that that cannot possibly be right. And that's why he is bowing to the spirit of the age. And none of us, I want you to know, is immune to that. None of us wants to fall into the category of being homophobic. We don't want to reject folks just because they're struggling. Those are difficult and painful issues. But we also need to know what is Biblical truth and why it is important. And so the antidote to all of this is really knowing what Scripture has to say. We need Biblical wisdom. And here's how the book of Proverbs puts it in Proverbs chapter 2, "My son of you, accept my words and store my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God, for the Lord gives wisdom. And from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding." At the end of the day, we need to have God's take on things. We need to know his word. And we need to understand why these issues are so critical to the well-being of society. And for that reason and the time that remains this morning, and probably Lord willing next week, I want to look with you at four things that we need to understand if we're going to be able to have a voice to stand against the spirit of the age and the push that is behind the social disintegration that we see all around us. Let's make a start on it this morning. We'll see how far we can get. First thing that we need to understand I think, and this ties in directly to why fathers matter, there is a God-ordained order to all of creation. There is a God-ordained order to all of creation. This order is revealed both in scripture and in nature, and it applies to all of the areas that we've just talked about where change is happening in today's society. Let me walk you through that as quickly as I can. First of all, there is a created order in the issue of gender identity. Scripture is very clear, Genesis 1.27, "God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female. He created them." We'll talk later if we have time about why that is so important, but let it be said that in the created order, God creates both male and female in the human race, and there is a reason for that. Now, same thing is true in terms of sexuality. Throughout scripture, heterosexuality is taken for granted. All you have to do is put a naked male body next to a naked female body, and you see there are parts that are meant to fit together. You don't have to be too brilliant to figure that out. And not only is heterosexuality considered normal in scripture, homosexuality is always seen as unnatural. There are many scripture passages to indicate that. The only way people can get around that is to try to make those passages say something else than what they say. And you can interpret something whichever way that you want, but God's truth remains standing. So gender is God ordained, sexuality is God ordained, and of course so is marriage. Marriage wasn't a social construct that our ancestors put together so they wouldn't be lonely and so they could bear children. No, it's a divine institution. Genesis 2 verse 24, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and his mother, be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." A verse quoted multiple times by Jesus in the New Testament as establishing the marital relationship. They will become one flesh. And out of that comes a biblical understanding of family. And I know the word patriarchy has a lot of negative connotations in this day and age because people picture abusive fathers and they picture abusive authority and they believe that freedom consists of just everybody doing his own thing. That's what we're doing in society. We've never been unhappier than what we are. The Bible says the purpose of marriage is not just for companionship, it's not just for sex, it's not just for all of the things that we associate with marriage, it's also a reflection of the relationship of Christ with the church. And so marriage represents a covenant relationship where the husband is to reflect the person of Jesus who laid down his life for his church and the wife that represents the church who in submission to her husband's authority shares in his protection and in his goodness. As a lot of you know, I cover that in much more detail in my book To Have and To Hold. We still have a number of such copies. If you don't have one, you're welcome today to pick up a complimentary copy because we deal with that subject in considerable detail. There is a divine order to the created structure. And when you begin to mess with that created structure, you run stock. Some of you have heard me tell the story years ago, back on the farm we had one of the early models of a Massey-Harris diesel tractor. I remember it well. It was a Massey 44D, most unique tractor that I've ever seen because if you didn't start it quite right, the engine actually had the capability of running backwards. So now you have one gear ahead and five gears backwards, a lot of fun to drive, but not something we ever dare do because we were smart enough to figure out it probably wasn't meant to run backwards, wouldn't you think? And we live in a world where we are bowled over by problems and we can figure out that maybe, just maybe, the engine is running backwards and we might want to submit to biblical truth and biblical order. Well you say, what about people with same-sex attractions? What about the need for love, the need for companionship, the need for, yes, those are huge issues, but we have to distinguish between what is the biblical norm and what is broken ness that results from the foal. And my problem personally is not the struggles that people have, as you know, our ministry in this place is committed to helping the last and the lost and the least to get their lives together by faith in Jesus. We believe in the power of the resurrected Christ who can change the deepest places of our hearts, but you cannot call what is broken normal or what is sinful as right without turning the whole world upside down, and that's what's happening in our world today. There is a created biblical order, remember that, know your scriptures, fix them in your own mind and don't listen to the interpretations that try to make you believe it says something other than what it obviously says. Those who do such things, referring to the whole range of sin, will not enter the kingdom of heaven. One thing we need to understand is that good science supports the biblical order. Good science supports the biblical order. Notice I said good science, because one of the reasons, there are many reasons why this train is rolling down the tracks as fast, I mean, in ten years, double the number of people in America have accepted same-sex marriage. You know how long it's taken the anti-tobacco lobby to convince people that smoking is wrong? That's been a huge campaign that's been going on for as long as I have been alive. But this campaign is just moving at a phenomenal speed, isn't it? You know why? Many, many reasons, but one reason is because people are always throwing figures at you that support their particular position. And so you and I, through the mass media and whatever else happens in the world, are constantly being told a number of very pertinent things. Here's a smattering of them. First of all, you're being told that people are born gay, that it's a genetic condition, and that therefore they can't do anything about it. Secondly, you're being told that because they're born that way, they indeed cannot do anything about it, and to ask them to change, now in the province of Ontario before the age of 18 has become a crime, you know that. As well we're told, the children raised by same-sex parents turn out to be every bit as well adjusted as the children raised by heterosexual parents. And we're told that transgendered people, once they undergo the surgery and now become what's generally referred to as transsexual, are much happier than before. That's just a smatter. I mean, you listen, you hear this too, do you not? This is coming at you from all sides with great pressure, with great certainty. It motivates political decisions, it moves politicians when they change the law, and it changes how the whole society sees what's happening. The question is, is that good science or not? And I submit to you this morning that if you do a careful survey of the literature, then you will discover that on more than one occasion, the science is motivated by a political agenda, not by scientific fact, despite the people who quote it, promote it, and otherwise push it. A couple of quick examples just in terms of the areas that I was talking about. First of all, are people born genetically gay? Back in 2010, there were two studies that professed to find evidence of it. Both of those studies have been debunked, and to date there is no known genetic connection with a homosexual condition. You need to know that. Does that mean that it's unrelated to people's birth? No. The strongest evidence, and we'll talk about that later if we have time this morning, has to do with the fact that how the brain is exposed to hormones in the mother's womb determines whether you lean towards masculinity or whether you lean towards femininity. And when that gets messed up, strange things begin to happen. But between that and then the environment in which people grow up, particularly their failure to bond in a healthy fashion with parental figures has a lot to say about how a person's sexual gender develops as time goes on. And of course, the more permission you have in society to be different, the more opportunity there is to say, "Well, I think I'm something other than what I am." People go very often with the crowd. Same question about homosexuality. Can it be cured? The gay lobby is 100% convinced, and they will try to get you convinced, that homosexuality cannot be cured. The best studies indicate that that is a blatant lie. Three out of four boys who suffer from sexual confusion before the age of 18 turn out to be perfectly normal heterosexual by the time they're 25. That ought to tell you something about reparative therapy. Furthermore, 30 to 70%, depending on the nature of the therapy, of people who really want to change, change under treatment. And here is a fascinating quotation from a fellow by the name of Dr. Robert Spitzer. You'll never have heard of him, but he was one of the gay activists instrumental in 1973 in getting the category of homosexuality dropped as a disorder from what's known as the DSM, the psychiatric manual that determines what's normal versus what is not normal. He's an advocate of the gay movement, but in all fairness, he decided to do a study on his own to see whether reparative therapy actually would work or not. And so he studied 200 people, and here, in his own words, is his conclusion. There is evidence that change in sexual orientation following some form of reparative therapy does occur in some gay men and lesbians. I approach this, he said, quite skeptical, and I've been convinced otherwise. The gay activists have taken the viewpoint that, from a political strategic point of view, they do better if they can convince society at large that once you are homosexual, you can never change. And I can appreciate that that helps them politically, and I am not -- the word should be unsympathetic towards the political goals, but I think it's just not true. Isn't that interesting? That's an advocate of the movement saying the science does not line up with the evidence. In fact, the gay activists who started this whole ball rolling in their book after the ball, trying to get Americans to accept the gay movement as normal, point out point blank that even though the science does not agree with their position, it is still useful to promote it the way they are promoting it because their purpose in their estimation is the greater good. Well, Dr. Spitzer got himself into a lot of trouble. He was harassed until the day of his death. He became persona non grata in the movement that he himself had originally supported, and while he was suffering under Parkinson's towards the end of his life, he wrote an apology saying that he should have never said that, but here's the ironic thing. The science never changed, and nobody ever countered his argument. The scientific facts support the reality that lives can change. Well, you say, what about children living with gay couples? Are they not just as well adjusted as the children that are raised in normal heterosexual families? And I'm sure in some instances that can be because there's lots of screwed up heterosexual families as well that turn out some really missed kids, but here's the reality. Listen to what the American College of Pediatricians have said about this as recently as 2013. Given the current body of evidence, the American College of Pediatricians believes, and notice how strong their language is, it is inappropriate, potentially hazardous to children, and dangerously irresponsible to change the age-old prohibition on same-sex parenting, whether by adoption, childcare, or reproductive manipulation, this position is rooted in the best available science. And they make 36 references to scientific literature that supports that position. So what about transgender surgery? Will Katelyn now be happier than when he was Bruce? Well, John Hopkins Hospital in the United States has been on the forefront of pioneering same-sex or gender surgery, reassignment surgery, they call that. And a fellow by the name of, let me get you his quotation here in a moment. What are we doing up there? Dr. Paul McHugh was chief psychiatrist at John Hopkins, has done an extensive survey of reassignment surgery, and in an op-ed piece this past week in the Wall Street Journal had this to say, he cites a 2011 study that followed, quote, "324 sex reassigned persons from 1973 to 2003 in Sweden. It found that persons with transsexualism after sex reassignment have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population." And beginning about 10 years, he says, after having the surgery, this is 10 years later now, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable non-transgender population. You get that? Ten years after the fact, the rate of suicide in that population goes right through the roof. Why? Because after sexual reassignment surgery, at first people feel really good because now they have the body to go with what they feel like on the inside. But you see, the unsettled conditions in the inside that led them to this confusion hasn't been fixed at all. And so now the problem comes back, and so, interestingly enough, John Hopkins Hospital, one of the early pioneers of this movement, now refuses to do sex reassignment surgery. And here we have Caitlyn Jenner blasted all over the news as a wonderful example of how courageous and brave this man is to fit the outside body to what he feels like on the inside. I don't know about you, but I find it sad, and I find it tragic, and love does not mean giving in to people's brokenness, love means taking them by the hand and pointing them to Jesus. Don't you think so? That's got to be the heart of the church. That's got to be our heart. All right, one more thing that I want to cover, which is really what I want to get to this morning because at the end of the day, it's not just a biblical order to creation, it's not just the realization that there is good science that agrees with the biblical order of things, which ought not to surprise us really, but here's the critical issue that it comes down to, and that is this, ideally children need both a father and a mother to grow up normally. Now I say ideally because we live in a broken world, there are broken families, there are broken relationships, and we can talk about all of that, but the issue here is what does the child need in order to grow up with his inside world matching his outside world, and that is an issue that is related to masculinity as well as femininity. Masculinity and femininity are vital principles that we need to understand, so let me take a few moments and try to explain something to you that most of us never think about. What makes a boy a boy or a girl a girl? We all have our own ideas, boys play with trucks, girls play with dolls, that's said to be very sexist in this day and age by the way, and you know girls like to get dressed up and be frilly and boys like to beat the snot out of each other and all of that kind. But what if that is cultural and what if that is inherent in masculinity and in femininity? Because you see the social engineers of our day and age will tell you that most of the things that we think are proper girl behavior or proper boy behavior in our culture are culturally conditioned and that are not the result of biology or inherent characteristics. Well a number of years ago a fellow by the name of Leon Podols wrote what I think is one of the most profound subjects on that topic, he wrote a book called The Church Impotent, the Feminization of Christianity, and he started that project because he had noted a very interesting thing. He had noted that in Judaism and in Islam the men took the forefront in leadership but in Christianity increasingly it became feminized, the men disappeared, and the women took over. And so that led him into a whole investigation of what those issues are and it's a fascinating study but in the course of that he defines both masculinity and femininity in ways that I had never heard it defined before and the more that I've thought about it the more I can only agree about the importance what he's talking about. So let me walk you through this for just a moment or two. He says the masculine principle is one of separation and differentiation. Separation and differentiation, I'll explain that in just a moment. The feminine principle, he says, is one of communion and integration. Now let me talk about those because they're very important. Separation and differentiation means that the masculine principle is that of drawing a line in the sand and saying this is what I stand for and this is what I stand against. And you see it in young boys who can fight each other till blood runs out of their noses and they can have the toughest little quarrel and then they'll put their arm around each other and they'll walk back as good friends. You'll never see girls do that, you know that? You'll never see a girl do that but boys will do that. You see it in boys, who do boys admire in their social world? It's the person who stands out from the crowd, a hero they can worship, a leader they can aspire to, isn't that true? Differentiation and separation, the masculine brain is wired, this happens through chemicals in the brain before the child is born that enables him to focus and that enables him to stand for whatever he is standing for, regardless of what is happening around him feeling wise. And for you wives who can't figure out how your husband doesn't feel what you're feeling and doesn't resonate with your pain, that's one of the reasons they're brain damaged. You might as well know that, absolutely true. The number of connections between the two halves of the brain in a guy are reduced from that of a woman so that he can focus in ways that most women cannot focus and so that he can be singular in his differentiation and his separation. This is simple biology that is now generally accepted across the board. So what about integration and communion? Well, it's the opposite of that. The feminine principle is that of minimizing differences. It's that of creating a safe environment where life can flourish and where feelings can come to proper expression and where we can just be together. And you see that in the fact that women tend to gravitate towards an intimacy and friendship and conversations that most men you will never find doing. You'll never see men sitting around the table and evil-geezing at the kind of conversation that most women do. That's generalizations, but we're talking about broad spectrum patterns here. You see it in the fact that girls go to the bathroom together. You'll never see guys go to the bathroom together. And one of the mysteries for guys is why can't you pee on your own? Why does it have to be with other people? And you can see it in the fact that generally speaking, a woman can walk into a room and she'll gauge the atmosphere in the room in a way that most guys are completely oblivious to. And the wife will say to the husband, "Did you notice so-and-so? Did you see her flirting with him?" And he goes, "Huh? Totally clueless." Because you see, her brain is wired for multitasking and she can observe a thousand things at the same time because in the structure of the family, that's how God has ordained it, and that's why the wiring happens the way that it does. And if you want to pursue that in more detail, I talk a lot about that in Blessings and Curses because we need to understand these dynamics. But now, there's a purpose to all of this because it has huge implications for parenting and it has huge implications to understand why fathers matter. A couple of observations that we need to understand about all of this. And the first of all is that both masculinity and femininity exist in a range. They range from the hypermasculine to the more effeminate and the hypermasculine feminine side to the girly girl over here. So over here, we have the guy. If this is the norm and most of the population fits in here somewhere, on the far fringes, this is your man's man. This is the guy with the gun rack in the back of the truck and four wheel drive and he has just got to go up the mountain and turn the world upside down and he can't figure out why everybody else doesn't think that's great fun. He's strong. But not all men are that way and to cast masculinity as that being the ideal is terribly confusing to somebody else who is over on this end of the spectrum. He leans more to the feminine. So here you've got the guy who is the artist. Here is the guy who understands girls. Here is the guy who just has more of the feminine in him. Now the same thing is true for women. There's a broad range in women. If this is your girly girl over here who flashes her eyelids helplessly and she could never change a tire in the course of her life, over here you've got a woman who is a man's woman. And I'll tell you this, if you see women in leadership in today's society, the ones who succeed in a tough and tumble world are the people who lean towards this. Think Margaret Thatcher, think of any of the politicians that you know. For a woman to succeed in a man's world, she needs to lean towards the masculine in her life which means that she either has that by nature or she has to adopt a persona to try to make that work in the real world. Now here's a very interesting thing while I'm on a roll here. The purpose for this is complementarity so that in marriage a man and a woman can adopt different roles and make for safety in the family. A man's giftedness is of critical importance in providing stability and security for the woman and the children that she's going to have. Now you can find, interestingly enough, you can find people who are... There's a conspiracy here. You can find what happens when this kind of a woman marries this kind of a man. We all know them. The woman wears the pants. The guy has nothing to say. And amazingly in some instances the marriages work really well. But the roles are inverted. He just does everything that she says and he lets her run the show and between the two of them they get along perfectly fine. You know where the problem comes in? It's when they have kids. Because their kids will get confused about the roles that are being occupied by the parents. The girl will tend to reject her mother's bossiness if that doesn't agree with her own makeup. The guy will be offended by the fact that his father is a weakling. And now you start this generational cycle of brokenness that goes on and on and on. And here's the point that I'm trying to make. For children to grow up healthy and strong they need a good dose of the feminine and they need a good dose of the masculine. The feminine unfolds them, kisses them better, allows them to feel what they are feeling, encourages them that life is a safe and a good place. That's the role of mothers. Watch a mother with a baby and you'll see how critical that role is for the raising up of children. The purpose of the father, the purpose of the masculine is to empower the child to stand up and break away from the feminine so that he or she can be their own person, stand for what is right in a world that is filled with confusion. And so a father says I know this hurts but you're going to do this because I'm going to help you push through this to come into the places where you need to be. So can gay couples raise good kids? You know, here's the irony, in some ways they can. Because even in gay couples, I don't know if you understand this, if we can have the chart back up, even in gay couples the feminine principle tends to be present and the masculine principle tends to be present, isn't that true? Because they talk about husband and wife, which is always weird to me because I don't know how they decide who's the husband or who's the wife and I'm not saying that to make fun. But they do that because one leans towards the masculine, the other leans towards the feminine and to the degree to which they do, they can actually do some pretty good stuff with their kids but there's a problem because the biological doesn't match up with the emotional, it leads to confusion. And that's why we now have a society in which children are desperately confused. And I don't know if you read the news story just this past week, there was a case in the Oakville, Burlington area where a divorced or separated couple is fighting for custody over their five-year-old child. The five-year-old child is biologically a boy. The mother thinks that he's really a girl and she dresses him in girl clothes to send him to school because you see the little boy has said he likes long hair and he sees that girls have long hair and so there's some interest in being a girl. His father thinks that he's a boy and the father sends him to school as a boy. In fact, father and son with the son's permission had a bonfire to burn his girl clothes. Now you can imagine what kind of tension this causes over this little kid so CAS steps in and CAS takes the child away from the mother, the mother takes it to court and what does the judge say? The judge says the child shouldn't have been taken away from the mother and the judge says the parents ought to just let the boy grow up without reference to gender to see where he is going as he grows up in the course of his life. That is the society that we live in. And you and I, what's our responsibility? Our responsibility as men and women is to embrace our femininity and our masculinity, recognize what is the normal range because beyond the normal range there is also brokenness. You know, the guy over here who has been bullied may well be the boss for all the wrong reasons and the girl who is the butch over here may be the butch not because this is where her natural range lies but because she's been abused and she has said I'm never going to be vulnerable and I'm never going to allow my weaknesses to show and the challenge for you and me is regardless of our history in Christ is to recognize okay, this is who God has made me to be. These are areas of my life where I'm broken that God needs to fix but I'm committed to be the mother that God is calling me to be and I'm committed to be the man, the father that God is calling me to be because this is a day and age for men to rise up and to say fathers matter because fathers call forth their children and in calling forth their children enable their children to know who they are, what they stand for, what their values are and they know how to fight evil in the world for the glory of God. Does that make sense? [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:52:40.880; remove through 00:52:47.000] That's the call of the Buster. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:52:47.000; resume after this marked segment]