Creflo Dollar - Castrated Manhood - Part 2
So what happens when that man becomes the faucet that love flows, the faucet that love flows nourishing his wife with what Christ has nourished him with, what God has nourished Christ with? He's nourishing his wife. Not just knowing the Scriptures, but he has a relationship with God so he can nourish his wife. And his wife receives that nourishment and, man, she begins to, oh, grow all kinds of wonderful fruit. And she could nourish the children, and what goes around comes around and then you getting some of what she's growing all because the right stuff's coming out you as the faucet, the God stuff's coming out of you, the faucet.
So I'm convinced, how can I ever expect for us to have successful marriages until I have this talk with every man? Let's talk about some things for a moment. Jesus's life embodied true masculinity. Are you looking for the man example? "I ain't have no daddy". You looking for the man example? It's Jesus, Jesus is the example of masculinity. If this was not important, how come God didn't put himself in a female body? Now, that's not to say that he didn't use females because he had female disciples, a lot of people don't understand that. You know, there were female, Tabitha was a female disciple. "Well, not being in the pulpit". Ah, they were apostles in the day. What are you talking about? But Jesus is the embodiment of manhood, and you don't know him trying to be a man.
So what bad example have you copied? 'Cause if Jesus is not the example of manhood, you're copying somebody. It's never, "Boy, that's just how I am". It's never like that. You getting it from somewhere. I love to see young people talking about, "No, this just my style, this is how", no, dude, go on the internet, somebody had that like way before you had it, you ain't got nothing unique. Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. Who's your example? Jesus has got to be the ultimate example. He's the embodiment of true masculinity. Masculine leadership in marriage isn't an opportunity to be served, but masculine leadership in marriage is a calling to serve sacrificially. Manhood is sacrificial servanthood, and when you are a man, you are a servant. Sacrificial servanthood. When you are a man, you are a sacrificial servant. Manhood embodies Jesus Christ, and Jesus came as a servant. He said, "Let the greatest amongst you be a servant". Jesus came and took on the form of a servant.
So if we're looking at the embodiment of Jesus Christ as an example of true masculinity, then the first thing we've got to see is as a man, if we don't have the form of a servant, you are missing manhood. Who are you serving? See, traditionally it's been taught the other way. You thought you were to be served, and now you're learning that manhood is all about you serving. Opening the door for your wife is not just one of them things you learn to be like a "real man". It's what you should have been doing as a servant. If you are not serving others like Jesus, you're not fully walking in biblical manhood.
Look at Philippians chapter 2:3 through 8, Philippians 2:3 through 8. Let's look at this in the NLT, if you will. You know, we're talking about real manhood. That means we've got to take the entire word and define it properly under grace and according to the Word because these definitions are wrong and we bought it, I bought it. What happened was I got married and I was looking for a whole new set of laws for marriage, and I bought it. Oh my God, so many things I bought that I didn't understand, and that's why I knew at the end of the day I had to have a relationship with God. If I am going to be responsible for being a leader and a teacher, I've got to know him for myself, I got to get in that Word, and I got to be willing to let go of all the stuff I've learned traditionally and get before God and find out, "All right, so here's what this thing really is". He says in verse 3, "Don't be selfish".
Manhood is about selflessness. "Don't be selfish. Don't try to impress others. Humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. Don't look out only for your own interests," this is in marriage. "Don't look out for your own interest," this is in marriage, "but take an interest in others too," this is in marriage. "You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave," or a servant, "and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself," wow. He submitted himself to that servanthood role. As a man, if you're ever going to get this manhood thing down, are you willing to be a servant or are you just interested in trying to find somebody that can serve you? If all you're ever doing is trying to get somebody that can serve you, you're just a mailman, or a milkman, or the iceman. You don't even know, you don't know, you have no idea what manhood is because manhood involves servanthood.
Now, let's look at this. Our lack of proper education on manhood and credible role models has led to the deterioration of manhood, which has created a diluted image in our modern youth of what a real man should be, and that's a question that's asked a lot of time. What should a real man be? Therefore I want to bring to mind, we used to call it man law, we still do, but it's now a more therapeutic term is toxic masculinity, toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity exist today in our society, which is a term often used to describe the negative aspects of exaggerated masculine traits or man law. Well, what are those aspects? Toxic masculinity or man law would be things like, "A man should be strong at all times, don't you share a tear".
You see, if that boy grows up hearing that and he's trying to do that, instead of shedding tears he'll start shedding bullets. This masculine trait, this toxic masculinity is things like, "Never show any emotions. A real man don't show emotions. Be aggressive and get into fights. That's a real man. Drink alcohol and do drugs. I mean, that's a man's man. A real man is big and he's muscular. A real man, if you're a real man, you got to have sex and you got to have money". Manhood has also been defined, and it's weird today, but manhood is defined as, "How can I brag to you about how many women I have deceived into taking care of me"?
And so even today, that's a huge thing today, you know that, don't you? It's like, you know, you hit yourself in the chest and you say, you know, "I got me a woman that take care of me. In fact, I got four women that take care of me. They bought me a car, they took me on exotic vacations. Oh, I got me a 'sugar mama.'" And what you don't realize is you don't have to work 'cause you're being taken care of by that woman, you don't have to be responsible for bills because she got a job taking care of you. You don't have to even get up in the morning. All you got to do is just be there, supply some sex; and you're being taken care of by this woman, and you don't even realize what happens is now she wants you to start taking care of her like she's taking care of you and what happens is you can't do that because you've been castrated and you don't even know how to handle the things that she handles because your castration of manhood has taken place because you didn't have the opportunity to face those challenges, you didn't have the opportunity to try to figure out how to pay the bills, you didn't have the opportunity to try to figure out how to keep a roof over your head, you didn't have the opportunity to try to solve those different issues that would come in.
And while you're beating on your chest and bragging about how many women are taking care of you, you are losing the valuable apprenticeship afforded to every man so that he can learn real manhood. And the problem with that is, is that the day you start realizing it, you don't know how to do nothing because all she got to do 'cause you're not married 'cause it's just a piece of paper, all she got to do is say, "I'm tired of this". Because what's going to happen is eventually, all that's about control, "I can control you. I can tell, you better do what I tell you to do or I'mma put you out, you better do what I tell you to do or I ain't gonna give you no more money, you better do what I tell you to do or I'm gonna take that car from you, that's my car, what you talking about"?
And then all of a sudden you find yourself, watch this, submitting because you ain't really got nowhere to go and you ain't got no money and you got nothing to do and you have been castrated, and you don't even know that your manhood opportunity has been robbed from you because the world says the thing to do is find a lonely woman who will take care of you, who's in the fear of not, "I'm fearing that I don't get a man. So I need to go ahead and buy me one and keep me one". And it's just a crazy mess going somewhere to happen, and you beat on your chest and you say, "I'm a man". You pass from one place to another place to another place renting yourself out, castrated and don't even know how to reproduce any of what you're going through. I didn't expect anybody to put their hand and clap. Some of y'all, don't change that. You stay right there, stay streamed there, right there. I hear some wives over the screen say, "Oh, pastor, he ain't going nowhere. I got him right now. I handcuffed him to the couch. He ain't going nowhere".
Look at our society today. Look at our society today. That's why you see so many men that's soft as cotton, don't know how to do nothing. Don't even know how to shake your hand right. When we were growing up, we had uncles and everybody that say, "Squeeze that hand. Get a little bit more firmer". And you think, "That ain't nothing. That ain't got nothing to do with manhood". It's not the handshake that I'm talking about, it's just somebody there that's trying to guide you and trying to show you. I'm not talking about keeping man law because if you're trying to force men to keep man law, they're going to fight or flight. They're going to... man law has destroyed many men, but that's one of them, toxic masculinity. What do you do when a lady goes to get her hair fixed and she looking to her right and her husband is sitting right there getting his hair fixed? He's been castrated. He don't know what else to do. Got you a sugar mama. Seriously?
I talked to a man like that who had that going on. He came to me in tears. The relationship was going down. He wanted to move out, but he says, "My credit ain't even good enough for me to get a place to live". He wanted to move out, but he says, "I can't even get no job". He wanted to move out, but he says, "I don't even know what to do at this point. I've been dependent on her for so long". You know what it's like to see a grown man weeping? I said, "Well, you can correct all that. You can build your credit score up. You can get a job. You can do stuff. It may be slow, but you'll do it". And, you know, I'm so proud of him, he did it, and he came to me later on he says, "I had no idea what manhood was all about until I made that decision to do what need". He says, "I feel so much better about myself". Men'll listen to this and say that's crap. They'll cuss me, blank Creflo Dollar, all that kind of stuff, but I'm telling you the truth.
You will not know the real meaning of manhood until you dismiss all of these weird modern-day philosophies and make Jesus your model for real manhood. Not going to happen. Dominance comes as... it's a part of that toxic masculinity. And so overemphasis of these traits, overemphasis of keeping man law may lead to harmful imbalances in someone trying to live up to these expectations. And so here's the result now to a guy that's trying to keep man law, a guy that's trying to keep these toxic masculine rules. He's going to end up with some aggression, he's going to have sexual aggression and control, he will show no emotions, and then he'll suppress those emotions. This kind of guy is the guy also that's hyper-competitive because of that. This is the result of trying to keep man law, needing to dominate or control other people so he feels like, "I need to dominate and control other people because of that".
The results is a tendency towards glorification of violence. The results may end up in isolation. He may have love empathy or the ability to understand and to share, or he won't have the ability to understand and share his feelings with another person. Entitlement is going to be one of the results that comes because he's trying to keep this toxic rules masculinity and rules and regulations. Chauvinism and sexism is going to become a part and a result of all of that kind of stuff. So one example of this includes telling another man, and you've heard this before, "Man up, man up. Don't show those emotions, man up". Alright, "What"? Or, "Boys will be boys". An excuse for your behavior and how you carry yourself. Guys, we got to do better, and we got to do better quickly because there's a broken world that's depending on us as Christians to show the example.
There are people from the world who have come into the church looking for an example, looking for somebody to help them; looking for somebody to tell them how do I do this, how do I work this. Families are all messed up. Some are coming up with single mothers, and some are coming up with absentee fathers, and some are coming up with fathers who just don't know how to be fathers and all that kind of stuff, and the world is depending... well, they don't even know they're depending on us, but they need to have a light somewhere in all of this darkness. And we need to quit, you know, going back and forth with all of these foolish conversations that's not in the Word of God, and you say, "Well, I don't agree with that". We're not talking about what you agree with or don't agree with. I'm talking about if you want to be a real man, you got to follow Jesus, you got to get in his Word in order to follow Jesus, and you got to be a servant so that you can begin to build a model of what real manhood is.
If Jesus is not the real model of manhood, then who is? And that's where it starts. But somehow someway the devil's got into this stuff where athletes, men professional, men that got money, that this is at the bottom of the list, this is at the bottom of the list. Someone say, "Well, pastor, you know, I would be there if it wasn't for COVID". Yeah, but you was at the club last night, you had no mask on. You weren't social-distancing, nothing. You know, you be where you want to be. You be where you want to be. Listen, that's not trying to put conviction or something on that. I'm just saying you can always find an excuse for doing what you don't want to do, and I'm just telling you one day you'll get fed up like I was. I'm doing everything I thought I was supposed to do.
I'll never forget when my girls were about 8, 9 or something like that. You know, I thought, "Man, this is a easy question". I came up and said, "Who's the greatest dad in the world"? I said, "I know I am". And they looked at each other like, "Well", I was like, "What"? I'm like, "Well, what"? I remember that to this day. I'm like it's more than just providing. It's more than just doing, somewhere in the church, it went like this. There's God, then there's the church, and then if you have time, then there's the family. I can't tell you today how much I disagree with that, I can't tell you today how wrong that is, but that's all I knew. All I knew is I got to do God, then I got to do the church. Going away for months. And then if I have time, family. That's wrong. I don't mind. I'll tell anybody, that's wrong, that's not right.
The first place Jesus did a miracle was at a marriage. God wants to bless the family. God wants to bless the marriage. And you can't rob your family of all those other things and then for an excuse, "Well, that was for God". And God will like, "Don't blame that on me. I didn't tell you to do that in the first place". I believe this can happen, but I am fully prepared. And hear me well when I say this. I am going to preach the truth of this gospel if nobody is in the seat. I done preached to empty chairs for one year and a half. I'm used to it. I am not going to compromise this gospel just so people can feel comfortable coming to church. I'm not going to do it. Nope. I don't want you feeling comfortable coming here all the time, I don't want you feeling comfortable logging in all the time, oh no, oh no. I want to kind of, you know, get you to moving a little bit. I want you cussing me a little bit, you at home, you can cuss me a little bit, they can't do it here, but I want you to get a little uncomfortable. And then when you calm down, maybe, just maybe, you'll think about some of the stuff I've said to you today, just maybe.
Our women have been overworked trying to do their job and ours. "Men don't cook," well, you ain't going to eat either. In my house, you ain't going to eat. I remember one time I came to Taffi, I said, "Taffi, I'm hungry," she said, "Yes. What are we going to eat"? "No, no, no. That ain't what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear, 'Well, what you want me to cook?'" And she said, "Oh, no, you had me going for some years like you couldn't cook. You can cook. In fact, you can cook for both of us". And that part of me was like, ugh, ugh. And first thing I wanted to do is just step into selfishness and like, "You ain't no good wife. Hey, I am your husband. You know, I am your husband. I'm hungry and you telling me now I need to go cook"? She like, "Man, I've been cooking for you for a long time. Ain't nothing wrong with you using your hands to do that".
I had to get over that because that toxic masculinity on the inside of me was saying, "You wrong. You wrong. You ain't no good wife. I bet you I can get 20 women that would be willing to cook for me". Don't say that with Taffi, she like, "You better go find them 20". She said, "'Cause I ain't going to be in competition with nobody". And you know what I found out? I found out I enjoyed it. She cook for me. I mean, I can ask. She cook for me anytime I want her to cook for me. But to feel like you just got to and then somebody's trying to condemn you to do it, try to say you ain't no good wife if you don't do it, that ain't right, guys. That's not nourishing, that's toxic.