How Boys Become Men

Boys don’t become men in a vacuum…Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.

A long, snaky abrasion appears on the face of the Oklahoma earth as the single bottomed plow gouges it\’s way along under the old Indian and the unsteady pull of the Paint war – pony converted to plow horse. A single feather dangles from the silver braid of the old warrior. A matching feather hangs from a leather thong on the horses mane.

Bent over his plow, and looking at the wrong end of his horse, dreams of yesteryear fill his mind. He stops for a moment to reminisce of prairie grass, buffalo, and a horizon that beckons him from the back of his pony.

Once again he is bareback on his pony, feeling the horses heat on his thighs and their fluid unity galloping in the midst of the buffalo herd. Feather, horse, hair, rider and buffalo move together in symphonic motion. There is life. There is calling.

How is plowing the earth supposed to replace this memory of identity?

And more importantly, how is an old Indian behind a plow supposed to pass on to his son\’s the art of being a man?

The painting I have just described in the words of Preston Gilham, is a work by Wm. R. Leigh which hangs at the Woolaroc Museum in  northeastern Oklahoma. With oil and canvass words, the artist has portrayed the dilemma of every Father in a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to pass on the song of our souls to the young ones who look to us for the treasures that will build their identities.

And in these times, how important it is to forge boys into godly men of character.

Near the end of the nineteenth century, on the heels of a bloody civil war, Josiah Holland wrote:

      \”God, give us men! A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands.\”

And times have not changed much. If anything, they have become worse. And so we add to  that cry:

God, give us men. Give us Noah\’s to whom you can trust your mighty plans; give us Abrahams, who are willing to leave their homes in pursuit of the call of God. Give us Daniel\’s, who would rather face being torn apart by lions than compromise their beliefs. Give us John the Baptist\’s who would boldly proclaim the coming of the Day of the Lord. Give us Joseph\’s who would rather end up in prison than violate your laws and their consciences. Give us men that would hold high the standard of righteousness.

This is a worthy cry, but it must be borne in mind that before God gives us men he gives us boys.

Boys do not become men in a vacuum. Boys become men by watching men, by standing close to men. Manhood is a ritual passed on from generation to generation with very few spoken instructions.

What a tremendous responsibility it is for a father to forge his sons into manhood.

 But thank God, it is not a task which we have to battle through without help. To equip us for that task, God has provided the book of Proverbs, which upon close scrutiny, one will find is largely a book of instructions of a father to his son.

From this tremendous and exhaustive book of instruction, I have extracted four areas of teaching which I believe that we Fathers would do well to take note of on this Father\’s Day.

The first and most important of these is highlighted for us in the first five chapters of Proverbs.

I. DELIVER CLEAR COMMUNICATION

Proverbs 1.

The first 7 verses lay before us the theme of the book. The one thing that stands out in these verses is the importance of communication. The next 4 chapters open with the same emphasis on clear communication.

Ch. 2. \”My son, if you accept my words…\” Ch 3 \”My son, do not forget my teaching…\” Ch 4 \”Listen, my son, to a fathers instruction…\” Ch 5. My son, pay attention to wisdom…\”

For any of this to occur, the father must clearly communicate what it is that the sons must adhere to.

Farmer Brown and Mrs. Brown had a breakdown in their marriage. The farmer consulted a lawyer to discuss divorce.

The lawyer, in an effort to work towards reconciliation began to ask the farmer some questions.

\”Farmer Brown,\” he said, \”Do you have any grounds?\”

\”Surenuf, about 500 acres of my own, and several hundred on lease.\”

\”No, no Farmer Brown, that\’s not what I mean. Do you have a case.\”

\”A case? Well I guess so. Haven\’t used it in a while,  but I\’m sure it\’s somewhere in the attic.\”

Well, the lawyer knew he wasn\’t getting anywhere, so he tried again.

\”Farmer Brown, what about a suit. Do you have a suit?\”

\”Sure I have a suit. Wear it every Sunday to go to church.\”

Finally the lawyer found the right words. \”Farmer Brown, do you and Mrs. Brown have a breakdown in your marriage?

\”Yes,\” he said, \”We have a real problem communicating!\”

Today dad\’s have a similar problem.

In his book, The Dad Difference, Josh McDowell reveals:

That the average teen in our churches today spends 2 minutes a day in meaningful dialogue with his dad.

Twenty – five percent of these teens say they have never had a meaningful conversation with their father.

There are some keys to good communication.

For father\’s to pass on these values, it is vitally important that we learn how to communicate with our children.

To communicate.

Must take the time.

Must be prepared to listen

Must create an environment for communication – eg, Ball game, fishing trip, breakfast date, ruff and tumble.

Encourage a Response.

Respect their ideas.

The first step towards forging men out of boy\’s is to deliver the vital truths of Scripture through clear communication.

Now, let us look at what it is that we must clearly communicate.

To forge godly men out of our sons we must:

II. DEVELOP STRONG CONVICTIONS

Prov. 1:10 -16 Accents the importance of teaching our sons strong convictions even when it means standing alone.

 My son, if sinners entice you, do not give in to them. [11] If they say, \”Come along with us; let\’s lie in wait for someone\’s blood, let\’s waylay some harmless soul; [12] let\’s swallow them alive, like the grave, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; [13] we will get all sorts of valuable things and fill our houses with plunder; [14] throw in your lot with us, and we will share a common purse\”– [15] my son, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their paths; [16] for their feet rush into sin, they are swift to shed blood.

Notice these three distinctive commands.

Do not give in to them(vs 10) do not go along with them (vs 15) and do not set foot on their path (vs 15)

One of the greatest influences upon our children today is peer pressure. Pressure from the kids on the block or the kids in the classroom can be devastating to a young man, or a young lady who does not have any convictions instilled into their value system.

Fathers must teach their children that if the crowd strays from God\’s path, then we must follow the path, not the crowd. Even when it means standing alone.

And if pointing to the right path does not do it, it may be that Dad needs to take the stand in directing the child to change the peer group.

Early one morning, 20 – year  – old Matthew Strong was arrested. Police say he was caught robbing a gun shop of 90 handguns worth $75,000

But Matthew doesn\’t fit the stereotype of a gunrunner.

He is a former Eagle Scout and an honor roll business major at George Washington University.

After his arrest, Strong told reporters, \” It\’s not like I am a criminal. I scored 1400 on my SAT… I\’m on the Deans list here…Now they want to throw me in prison.\”

But there he was at the scene of the burglary, in the company of a convicted felon. By all appearances, he was a willing participant who knew that his companion had stolen guns many times before. (Washington Post June 28, 1992)

Matthew may or may not have intended to do what he did. But if someone had impressed upon him the danger of wrong choices, he may never have landed up in that position.

Parents, it is not out of place for us to care enough about the future of our kids that we know at all times the company they keep, and in some cases take a stand against that company if it is going to cause them damage. After all, who else is going to take care of their interests?

Moldy bread has a way of spreading it\’s degenerative spores to all the other slices in the loaf. Especially when they\’re together in the hothouse of a plastic bread bag. So, too, our children\’s companions can have an unbelievable impact on them. As a rule, we become like the people we spend most of our time with.

If your son or daughter has fallen into a moldy group of friends, how do you encourage them to take the painful step of discovering new friends?

Here are two ideas from Chuck Swindoll

1. First, teach them the qualities of a good friend. As you do this, have them evaluate their current friendships as well as consider the type of friends they would like to have. Remember though, that forbidding them to associate with certain friends may push them further away. They must ultimately make the choice on their own.

2. Secondly, remind them of the consequences of wrong. Study Psalm 73 with them. It teaches us not to envy wrongdoers but to consider the consequences of their actions. For children to withstand the magnetic pull of their peer group, it is essential that we show them the result of wrong behavior.

Peer groups are not the only hot houses where moldy bread can spread it\’s spores.

The home can be just as much an influence. If we are going to teach our children the value of convictions, we must be sure that we do not cause them to stumble because of our own irresponsibility.

In the Harold Morris video series, \”Twice Pardoned,\”  Harold tells about a car accident in which a teenage boy is killed. He and his friends had been drinking. When the police reach the home of the deceased boy and explain the details of his death, his father\’s immediate reaction is, \”If I could find who sold those boy\’s that alcohol, I\’d kill him!\” The dad is so shaken up that he goes over to his liquor cabinet for a drink, and there he finds this note that reads,

\”Dear dad, I knew you wouldn\’t mind if we borrowed this bottle of Brandy. We\’ll pay you back soon.\”

The way we live our lives at home will drastically influence the future of our children.

There is a third direction for forging boy\’s into men, and that is to:

III. DISCOURAGE SENSUAL COMPROMISE.

Teach him how to deal with temptation. The two strongest areas of temptation described in Proverbs just happens to be the greatest temptations of men today – the enticement of the opposite sex and excessive use of food and drink.

And according to the March edition of Family in America, Fathers have the strongest influence over their children in this area.

A study done by the University of Washington found that girls who lived in homes where the natural father was present were 42% less likely to engage in sexual activity before the age of 16.

Fathers, we do have something to say to our children with regard to this.

Let\’s look at what that wise father Solomon told his son about sex.

Proverbs 5:1-6 My son, pay attention to my wisdom, listen well to my words of insight, [2] that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge. [3] For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; [4] but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. [5] Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. [6] She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths are crooked, but she knows it not.

Dad\’s, you and I both know the dangers that are described in these verses and it is of utmost importance that we do not beat around the bush as far as these things are concerned.

And by the way, just so you know where I stand, it is not the place of our public schools to indoctrinate our children with their liberal ideas of safe sex which are totally out of line with what God says about that matter.

The liberal view of sex education has not reduced the danger of sexually transmitted diseases, all it has done has increased the sexual awareness of our teenagers, and STD\’s have increased as a result.

In the past two years, AIDS among 14-23 year olds has increased 72%. One out of 500 college students are HIV positive. 6,000 teenagers each day are contracting STD\’s, with one in seven teenagers affected.

Last October\’s issue of News & World Report  carried the story of a father who was shocked the day his 11 year old daughter came home from school and told him that during a lesson on sexually transmitted diseases she and her 5th grade class mates had to put a condom on a banana. The parents had not been consulted or even informed about their children participating in this activity. In the same article, parents in New York City discovered that schools were giving out pamphlets containing a sexual \”bill of rights\” for teens. One of the so called \”rights\” read, \”I have the right to decide whether to have sex and who to have it with.\”

Parents, who has the authority to bestow the inalienable right to be promiscuous?

Who has the authority to take away from God fearing parents the inalienable right to raise their teenagers under the standard of righteousness?

In Biblical terms, if we fail our children now, it would be tantamount to giving them stones when they are asking us for bread. Our children need to learn how to build a strong marriage and all we can do is give them condoms?

The madness has got to stop, and the place for that to begin is for Dad\’s and Mom\’s to take their kids back from the system and raise them to men and women of commitment and conviction.

But this is all very well to say. Putting it into action is another story, and church, this will be well nigh impossible if we do not have a spiritual awakening in the Church of America. If we do not come to the place where every Christian American mom and dad realize the disaster course we are on, and come before our most gracious and just heavenly father and plead with him for forgiveness and renewel, I doubt very much whether the tide can be stemmed, never mind turned.

That is the bottom line bottom line.

I quote Dr. James Dobson in an interview with Christianity Today, last February.

\”I really believe that the pressures on the family today from those who want to see it disintegrate are going to intensify. The only thing that will send us back in the direction of our roots is for large numbers of people to have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, for a revival to sweep our land. I pray for that, I long for it, and I see it as our only hope.

\”No philosophical discussion is going to bring that about. The only thing that will, in my view, is hardship. It might be that America is heading into a twilight period of immorality and wickedness that will have such painful consequences that we\’ll begin to remember where we came from.\”

A BOY TO HIS DAD.

To get his good night kiss he stood

Beside my chair one night

And raised an eager face to me,

A face with love alight.

And as I gathered in my arms

The son God gave to me,

I thanked the lad for being good,

And hoped he\’d always be.

His little arm crept \’round my neck,

And then I heard him say

Four simple words I shan\’t forget –

Four words that made me pray.

They turned a mirror on my soul

On secrets no one knew,

They startled me, I hear them yet;

He said, \”I\’ll be like you\”