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LOOKING FOR MR. RIGHT

I have this friend who has a couple of very attractive daughters. And in this family, there's kind of an old line they've borrowed from somewhere, and it goes like this: "Why doesn't a man do what a man is SUPPOSED to do?"

Meaning, where in this world are the men who will step up to the plate and do what a man should do — notice these beautiful daughters? This same friend, by the way, met his bride-to-be in church one weekend, got her phone number, asked her out — strong, very manly. Five weeks later they were engaged, and in short order this MAN had this woman in church again, down to the altar, and he married her. So he's the first to recite that line, kind of with a boastful grin, I guess. "Why doesn't a man do what a man is SUPPOSED to do . . . and like I did?"

Well, friend, that's the cry in more than one household. Where is there a MAN? Where are the strong, dependable, trustworthy, honest males of the world here in the year 2001? A little later this week we want to pull out an exceptional book that will tear your heart out; it's entitled Fatherless America. And there are literally millions of homes where a single mother and several fatherless children are asking this question: "Where is the MAN who should have been here? Where did he go?" Author David Blankenhorn cites one sad statistic after another about poverty and broken homes and juvenile delinquency and crime, and then observes:

"We seldom acknowledge the underlying phenomenon that binds together these otherwise disparate issues: THE FLIGHT OF MALES FROM THEIR CHILDREN'S LIVES."

In other words, if a man did what a man is supposed to do, these pain-filled scenarios wouldn't exist by the millions.
So we'll have some stories from here and there. But our focus this week isn't going to be on sociological issues and anecdotes from Divorce Court. Our title instead is this: WHAT A REAL MAN DOES. And for these five days I want to point each of you — males and females alike — to just one Man.

Of course, His name is Jesus Christ. Here 0n this program, that's our focus, to be sure. But I'd like to share with you that as the world bemoans, and Oprah's TV audience bemoans, and as single, lonely women everywhere bemoan the apparent absence of real MEN, we find to our amazement that this Man from Nazareth embodies all of those traits we might have thought are gone forever.

We went through just the book of Matthew in digging for some resource material, and it was very interesting to note story after story where you would say to yourself: "THERE'S what a real man would do!" And you know, in every case Jesus was the Man who did that right thing. For example, I'm sure many of you listening today have two complaints about men. Number one, they look at a woman . . . and they crave just the one thing. They want HER — meaning, they simply want the physical pleasure. A woman is a thing, a fun-time commodity. Oh, a man may not travel over to the infamous Mustang Ranch, or call an escort service, or sneak out to the red-light district. But in a hundred large and small ways, men are seen as manipulating, playing the game, using the sweetie-pie words and the compliments and the flowers simply because they want the jackpot prize at the end. Even wives who have been married for 30 years sometimes complain: "I feel used!" Their husband endlessly manipulates for what HE wants.

And maybe it's not always sex. It might be for the emotional security, or to boost his ego, or to satisfy his need to have someone subordinate to him in the home. But instead of caring for her, he uses her for him. That's what a man does.

Okay, so where does Jesus come in? I'd like to recommend to you one of the most exciting books to ever drop into our laps here at the Voice of Prophecy. It's written by a Hollywood actor named Bruce Marchiano. And as soon as I say "Hollywood," you'd never guess the book title. Here it is: In the Footsteps of Jesus. Back in 1993, this born-again Christian actor was hired by a South African film director named Regardt van den Bergh. He was going to film a movie entitled The Gospel According to Matthew. And Bruce was going to play Jesus in this film, using as a script every single word said by Christ in the whole book of Matthew. They were on location in Africa, where the dust and the sweat and the camels in the desert were very, very authentic. So was the cross and the crown of thorns, by the way. But in this four-hour film project, Bruce Marchiano, as all actors do, had to try to figure out this character, this Man. He wanted his portrayal to be absolutely accurate, completely real. In fact, he writes in his book, as a bit of humor:

"If there's one thing I'm proud of, it's that I'm the first Jesus in film history whose hair moved when the wind blew."

But he confesses that he wanted so badly to discover the core of this Jesus, what actors call the "spine" or the "through-line" — "the character's essence and core, from which his everything branches." What was it for Jesus? And he finally settled on this one line, which he found in a book entitled Jesus, Man of Joy. Here it is: "On a mission of redemptive love." Jesus, he decided, was a Man who loved.

Well, a lot of men do that. In fact, women complain how men are always "(quote) loving," pursuing, grasping, grabbing. But HOW did this Man named Jesus love? How would HE look at a woman?

Well, Marchiano tells a very familiar story: the one where a woman caught in adultery is dragged into the temple and tossed down like a half-naked rag doll before Jesus. "What do we do with HER?" they ask Him, lustful gleams in their eyes. "Stone her? What?"
Now friend, here was a woman who needed a man. Oh, she'd had plenty of men come around. But she needed for a man to do, as we say, what a real man is SUPPOSED to do. Was there a man anywhere in Jerusalem who cared for something more than that fifteen-minute experience, that ten-shekel bargain where her body was the vehicle of cheap pleasure? Was there any man who cared about the tears in her eyes, the brokenness of her heart?
And Marchiano writes:

"I often think about the guy she was in bed with — where was HE when she needed him that morning? Why wasn't he defending her like Jesus was? No, he was there when he could get something out of it, but when asked to climb out of her bed and into her life, he was out the back door and down the street." And that's the cry today from so many embittered, abandoned women. Then Bruce adds: "Then there's Jesus — a real man — standing heroically between that woman and the mob that wanted to kill her, with nothing to gain and everything to lose — shielding her, protecting her, loving her — being a MAN to her."

That's heavy, isn't it . . . and all of us who are men bow our heads in humility. But friend, a real MAN looks at a woman, and sees a PERSON. He sees a child of God, a treasure, a Creation. And Jesus, who was 100 percent male, who had the same hormones and testosterone counts as every man in this studio today, looked at that woman and saw a human being. He acted toward her as though she counted, because to a real MAN, at least to THIS real Man, she DID count.

And notice what else. He defended her! That's point number two. A real man defends what is precious and of value. A real man is strong. And Jesus stood up to that mob and drove them away with the righteous words He wrote in the sand, and with that simple statement: "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

Marchiano describes another acting moment where all the smug men in town, with their MAN-made laws about divorce and adultery ask Jesus a hard question. Men in that society — not REAL men, but those who made the laws — wrote the divorce regulations to suit themselves. And they asked Jesus: "What about this?"
And He gives them a strong answer:

"Anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

What?! These men are aghast when Jesus lays down this incredible law, this protective fence that defends women! Always before women were the cast-asides, the "chattel," or slave property. Men tossed them out the back door for burning the toast or for letting the first gray hair show up. And now this real Man had stepped forward and said, "No! You can't do that." Friend, THAT was what a real man would do.
Marchiano observes:

"Can you imagine the tension at many a supper table that evening as husbands sat stewing while their wives sat across from them grinning? Ah, what a day it must have been for the ladies!"

Listen, if you've been disappointed because no one cared about you for YOU, your search for that real Man is over right here. If you've been pushed around, taken for granted, left without a defender because there was no real man to stand up tall and say a word of warning to your accusers, look no further. The Bible tells us about a real Man who still loves — women AND men and boys and girls — the RIGHT way. And who, because of that love, is the mightiest Defender a person could hope for. Why not make embracing that Defender your first order of business here in 2001?