Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Sheep Get Sheared podcast. I'm your host, Austin Creed. I want to welcome you into this show. So my friends, I talk a lot about the church as a Christian guy who's maybe a little off the beaten path. Talk about it at length. OK, and part of this show's theme is really to get you to ask uncomfortable questions now, while I have solutions. It's not my intention for you to just blindly accept what I say. In fact, I hope you don't do that with anybody. My goal is to ask questions, bring up, maybe uncomfortable topics, maybe things you haven't heard before, and in doing so we can come to a mutual but probably different understanding. And hopefully you'll have the courage to develop your own personal philosophy, and we're gonna start that off today with talking about. Well, the church again, but how the church can repair relationships? Relationships are the most important. Aspect of any person's life. They could be friendships, romantic relationships, professional relationships. All these things are important because they open doors or close them everywhere that you go. I've experienced this in my own life with. The people being around me helped shape me as a kid. They help shape me even to this day. I guarantee you if you show me the top five people you spend time with. I can pretty well predict where you're gonna go in life. Good or bad. Doesn't really matter. Now. When it comes to relationships. We as men, assuming that of course you're a straight man. You you want the attention of women, right? We all do. OK. Well, here's the interesting part. We live in a society today that glorifies degeneracy and demonizes being traditional and. I want to get one thing straight. First and foremost, the idea of tradition that you maybe you're used to is not the tradition. It is a form of a more modernized tradition. Let's go back to World War 2. Like as soon as I hear as I know, I know as soon as I say World War. Two, you're immediately. You falling asleep already? I get that. I understand that it's mentioned at length by a lot of people. But ever since World War 2, the world has never been the same, and the church is no different. In fact, when the church. Started to change and had to adapt to World War 2. It started being run by women and born by more weak men and by weak I mean they weren't the ones fighting on Omaha Beach. They weren't the ones fighting in Berlin. They weren't the ones fighting. On Iwo Jima they were out there fighting the war. They were out there supporting the war effort instead. And these ideals have not vanished from the church. Today we have the feminism mindset, the toxic masculinity idea is prevalent in society. It was first really made popular by the Gillette commercial about five years ago. The whole boys will be boys, garbage. And people are all too easy and eager to talk about the ideas of toxic masculinity, and in doing so, they let lemon off the hook. They let weak men tell what? Tell us strong men. What the hell to do. And in turn, relationships are turned on their heads. So today what we're really going to talk about is challenging. Challenging you to think outside the box and realize that. What we're experiencing today is not something that has been going on for very long. It is a modern day interpretation of ancient texts and. I don't think that the church is thriving today, and part of that reason why it's not thriving, especially amongst young people in this country and across the Western world, is because it lacks teeth it lacks. Purpose it lacks power, in other words. It's giving you know what? Hold on before I talk about this, let's really get into what I'm talking about. So. First clip, we're going to show today. I've showed this man on the show before. I don't know what he's going to say in this particular. Video I don't watch the videos beforehand, I just make sure they're appropriate. But you know what? This is the kind of attitude we're seeing in the modern day church today. For the most part, and we're going to really explore. Whether or not you think that this type of behavior is good or bad, let's play. 

It psalms 37 four. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Can I passage, remix that? Because y'all all my life I've been quoting this wrong. Boss will give me the desires of. My heart. He gonna give me the desires of my heart. That's why I made the list so he can know exactly like Santa Claus. Exactly what I want. He said you missed it. When you put everything you are in the Lord. When I put my my my my relationships in the Lord, when I put my business. In the Lord. When I put my feelings in the Lord, when I submit my plans and I put in what in the Lord, when I take my family and. I put it. In the then God will give your heart. What it's supposed to desire so. 

Wait, huh? I'm I'm confused. So in other words. So he's part of the problem. In other words, I don't know what I want. God knows what I want, but I barely know who God is. I think I know, but I don't know what kind of leadership is this. Let me ask you a question, ladies and gentlemen, listening to the show. When it comes to leadership, whether it's in professional settings, personal settings, social settings doesn't matter. Is it? Does it not make sense that you would want to follow somebody with vision, somebody with purpose, somebody who you can understand, who doesn't speak in Spinks in language, speaks in syndrome, a term that I coined is basically using riddles and vague language to say nothing. To say nothing but imply everything OK. And so when we have pastors like this gentleman right here, who I'm sure is a good man, here's the problem. He might be a good man, but he doesn't seem like a very strong man. That's the problem. The problem, my friends, is this. For leadership to be clearly defined, we need to stop saying that this is what it should be. This is what it can be and say this is what it is. And this is what it will be unless things change. And once we have defined those terms, we can then say, OK, now that we're all in agreement on that, not even that we're in agreement that I've established for you what we are seeing in the world today. Now we can have a conversation about how we want. It to be. Here in this House, in this church, in my life, you can't change the world. The world is not going to be. We watched so many movies where the hero saves the world. The hero does something that stops a world ending event. We need to stop focusing on the world and focus on you, your community, the people you interact with. That is how we will get around this problem. But here's the issue. When you have men in the church who do instead of leading, they're passing the buck. They're being vague. They're not actually talking like men. They're talking like women. We have a problem. Now it's one thing if you're a woman talking like a woman, that's fine. Totally get that. Here's the problem, though. We have men trying to teach other men how to be men while giving them the guide to how to be a woman. That's what we're giving them. And that's that's not meant to be an insult, by the way. It's just meant to show you that we are giving the wrong prescription. For the problem. Just like a doctor needs to know all your symptoms to give you a proper diagnosis and then provide you adequate treatment. We are providing the wrong prescription for this problem. We think that if we, as men, simply become nicer people, we simply accommodate more individuals. We Simply put more love that we're gonna get a better return when in fact I don't think that any of these people have actually read the Old Testament. You know what gets on my nerves the most? My friends. In this attitude of relationships, people are so quick to quote Paul Timothy, the Apostles, and in in the New Testament about all this love and love. You know, love your wife like Christ loved the church, but yet for some reason they're very quick to cite that. But what they're not quick to cite is stuff like. This in Deuteronomy chapter 20. It's up to 22. I'm sorry. You know what I mean? Chapter 22, verse 13. Through what is that 30? This is the marriage violations found in the Torah, which for those of you who don't know the Torah was the foundation for Judaism, Islam and Christianity. And it lays out in very descriptive details. What they allow and what they don't allow for marriage and the common denominator, my friends, is promiscuity amongst women is a no and men forcing themselves on women is also a no, OK. But they provide, but they see. Here's my point. My point is not necessarily that I agree with everything in here. My point is this. They actually provided rules and regulations and punishments and rewards. We don't do that in the church no more. The church today. We don't do that. We simply encourage people we don't have rules. There's no teeth. Not saying you need to go out. Of your way to always bite. But you need to be able to bear your teeth to scare away the people who would come after you. But yet in the church today, we don't have these kinds of laid out rules like this. We don't have it. Instead, we just we use the shaming language. We desensitize people. We tell them to ask for forgiveness. You know, the problem of forgiveness is and no punishment. It doesn't work. It doesn't work when you think about it. Think about being a kid when you were a kid. If your parents just said Ohh Johnny now Johnny, you can't just go and smear paint on the walls. No, no, no, that is bad. And you just tell them that that's bad. You don't give them a you don't give them, you don't hit him with the belt, you don't put them in time. Out you don't. Just wash your mouth out with soap. You don't do these things to then not only tell them what they should do. Do tell them what they what they did was wrong and then punish them. The world turns on this carrot and the stick, but for some reason we only want to leave with the stick and we only want to lead with the carrot and have no stick. We don't want people to feel bad. We don't want people to feel remorseful. We don't want people to feel bad. Well, guess what? Being comfortable is the fastest way. To not grow as a as an individual. But you see, here's the problem. We have men in the church telling other men. Not to be dominant in plain English to be weak, we are rewarding the weak and decent devising the strong. We are telling men that it is strong. The weakness is strength and that strength is weakness. And then you wonder why the women are not willing to get married. You wonder why the women are out there at the nightclub and they're dressing like. Geezers and ***** and everything else. You wonder why this stuff is happening. Do I need to go back to Deuteronomy again? They punished people, for example, if a woman wasn't a virgin. She and her father were punished. Oh yeah. You weren't allowed to be married as a woman, and if you weren't a virgin with rare exception or you were, you were at least looked down upon, but no longer today. Today, that's not true, but yet we still want the men to be traditional. But the women are held to a different standard. And then you wonder why there's resentment. You wonder why their people are unhappy and the society is working in reverse. Let's go to. Let's let's let's look at another example about apparently. So Pastor Mark just got I've been to his church. He's a nice man, but I don't agree with him on certain. Things he says. And I'm curious to see if this is one of them or not. And so here's his description. It says many men mess this up. Well, let's see what. He's talking about. 

That's our wife, not. Employee, I mean guys read stuff in the Bible like the man is the head. They immediately go to. I'm the boss. God said I made them male and female and gave them together as a married couple minion together, not him in Dominion over her, not her in Dominion over him. It means that no one and that you're firstly responsible for the marriage and family. 

Oh my God. 

Is also. That you're supposed to treat her like Jesus treats the church dominion is not domineering, but as men, what we like to do sometimes we like to go to work and exercise dominion, and we wanna come home and we wanna exercise dominion. But that's. 

Wait, so you're saying that we're not supposed to be dominant? We're not supposed to lead. 

Oh, hell no. 

I hope I'm wrong with thinking that cause this is this ain't right. This ain't right. If that's true, then we are. We're in bad shape, man. See, this is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. OK, we have men talking about how men need to be more accepting and accommodating. Instead of putting our foot down and saying it's my way or the highway. I'm not saying you need to do that all the time, but there needs to be a bedrock. There needs to be a no, this is where the line gets drawn. Because then there's no separation between what is deteriorated and what is not tolerated. If you don't have that line, then what's the point of having civility at all? What's the point of having morality at all? No, I'm not someone that thought morality. I personally, for the most part, I really don't like it when people use morality as a weapon. Because then they don't actually have logic, they're just using their emotions. But my friends, when you don't have structure, you don't have leadership. You don't have people defining what is this is good. This is not good. Here's what we're going to accept. Here's what we're not going to accept. Then you provide this Gray area that people are going to be all too willing to fill in. Now I'm not. If you don't want to do that, that's totally fine. I'm going my own way. I'm doing my own thing. I wrote biblical bachelor. I'm not out here trying to get married. But you know what? There are a lot of men in my shoes right now who are in the same. Or they're ready to throw their whole life away to get married to a woman who, statistically speaking, will divorce them in about 7 years, leave them, take the kids, take half the assets and leave. Don't get mad. That's statistical evidence. You don't like it? Go write this. Go write the CDC. Go write this. The lawyer. The statistics of family court. Don't come to me. 80% of the divorces are filed by women, not by men. Now, in my opinion, that should be higher and we as men should have self respect enough to walk away, pay the money and walk away. But to many men we don't do that because most men are weak and they are willing to accept being treated like garbage being disrespected. Being trod upon and dealing with logic like that of ohh this is a partnership first of all to have a partnership we need to be bringing something equal to the table. But most of the time, women don't bring anything except with between their legs to the relationship. Just so we're clear. That's not meant to be hateful, by the way. It's meant to disturb by his statement of fact. Now there are exceptions, and there are some men who only bring the salami to the table. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you. That that's not true. It is. But guess what? Women want men who are accomplished. They want men who are ambitious. They want men who allow here an accomplished things, but then want to be a partner with a millionaire man. How are you a partner if you're not also a millionaire? How are you, my partner if you're not bringing anything but what, 50-11 other women have already brought to me? Just a question. You're mad. I can't help you. But let's you know what I understand. We're hearing this from the male perspective. Do we want to hear the female perspective? You know what I think we should? So these are how apparently these are how a woman. I won't say all women, but I will say a woman. How she met her husband according to her from church. Let's listen to it. I. Don't know how long this is. 

I'm going to tell you how my fiance and I, who are getting married in 50 days now how we ended up getting together. Because let me just say it was on me. Figured to myself as soon as I moved to this very small town from a big. City, I thought. Look, the possibility of me finding a spouse at the bar in a small town is very low. If I'm looking for somebody who wants to settle down, I have to go. Look where I have not looked before and that is that church involved in it. 

Ohh no. 

This is getting weird. I love the poorly educated. 

This is terrible. She just tore herself, by the way. She said she's never the church before. Oh, in other words, she's been on the Rooster roller coaster for years, and now all of a sudden she wants to cash in and find her Gump. Oh, great. Oh, that's wonderful. You are the problem, ma'am. You're part of the problem. 

At church. And so was my family. So I went to every single small group that this church provided for young adults like me. 

This is predatory behavior. 

And I tried every single one for like a few weeks. I went to the one on Monday, the one on Tuesday, the one I went to, all of it, trying to scout out instant. Are there any potential matches there for me? So in my small group, we would go see $5 movies every Tuesday at the Cinemark like a little bit down the street from us. So we all went and one girl in the group had a ticket. 

Ohh man. 

For the movie. But she got COVID, so one of the guys that was already in my group that actually ran like once a week with. He was like. Oh, this is a perfect time. Like I just had a guy who works with me. He just moved in and is sub leasing from me. So let me see if he's interested in coming to the movie tonight. He was going to come to the small group anyways, but this would be the perfect time for him to meet everybody in the. 

First of all, ma'am, as a fellow content creator, can you please get to the point a little faster? This is kind of. Thing here again, this is part of the issue I have is people don't know to get to. The point this is kind of annoying. 

And I was actually coming from a date with someone else and believe it or not, I had gone roller skating with and. 

What? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. 

That I was like kind of. 

Wait back up. Back up. What did you say? 

It's actually coming from a date with someone else. 

Ohh no. Ohh man. Did you hear that she was on another date and ohh my. Gentlemen, this is what you're dealing with in a dating marketplace, by the way. You're one of many. She's not yours. It's just your turn. And yet this dude not only took his turn, he paid for everybody else's turn. Ohh, my goodness. 

Oh, hell no. 

This is terrible. 

Believe it or not, I had gone roller skating with another guy that I was like, kind of sort of talking to and I. Almost didn't even go to this movie all. 

In other words, he got them cheeks. 

I almost skipped it because I wanted to hang out with the other guy, but longer, but I thankfully was like. OK. Like, I'm just gonna go to this movie. I already welcome ticket. Already another girl about COVID. And now there's this new guy that's coming. Like, I don't want to have a bad taste in his mouth about her life group. And thank goodness I did. Because as soon as I walked in and saw this guy, I was like. This is my man. It wasn't like a love at first sight kind of thing, but it was like very close. Like, as soon as I saw him, I was like, I've dated around in this city. I've gone to several different small groups I've gone like, I've gone and seen. What I needed to see and. 

Oh my God. 

See this is. The Oh my, I love how shamelessly we're saying that we've been in these streets and we're out here dating and desperation. Ohh no. Can you kindly explain to me what it was about him that jumped out? Was it that he looked really good? He looked like he made money. What was it? Ohh, we're not going to talk about that. 

And I am good with this guy. This guy is smart, he's handsome. He knows what he's doing. He's like, very sure of himself. And he has a good head on his shoulders. And we also have the same values in life. 

This is what you bust your behind to get. Ohh she's not ugly, by the way. She's not ugly. Here's the problem. What is he like? Guy #35? I mean, what's going on here? You're not the only one, but yet you're gonna pay for your turn and everybody else's turn by marrying somebody. OK, I'm gonna pause this for a second. Let's go back to Deuteronomy for a second. OK. They they had to present proof of the daughters virginity back in the back. In the old days. Otherwise, she would be stoned in the street in front of her father's house. No, I'm not saying that's happened today. Lord knows I wouldn't never be passed as law, and I don't want to live in a theocracy. But then let's go back to this. This woman, she's going on a date with somebody else. She's now going to the movies with this random guy who's accomplished. He's got goals, he's got ambitions, he's handsome, he's got stuff going for him, and he's gonna wipe up this woman who, in her own words. Was looking everywhere else except for church. In other words, she was on the Rooster Rooster Roller coaster, going from jumping from Johnson to John. And and now she wants to get serious. Probably cause she's getting close to 25 to 30 and now she wants to get married. Ohh man. 

So I maneuvered it so we could sit next to each other at the movie and this is going to sound so weird, but I was like, so attracted to his smell like he smelled so good. And I was. Like I need to see this man again. So he started coming to our life group and he also kept coming to like, the movie $5 Tuesdays. There was one week where he even brought a whole watermelon for, like, the group to share. And I was literally sitting by the watermelon. Like scarfing down watermelon, as if my life depended on it because it was his watermelon and he was standing there like. Cutting pieces up for people. So it's like I need to get this guy's attention, so let. Me. Just eat as much watermelon as I can. 

See what women will do if they're actually attracted to you. Gentlemen, you're out here. Can't get text text messages back out here. Getting left on. Read out here. Not getting attention from women. Oh, by the way, they you want to tell me women don't chase. They're not out here looking for mates selection. Ohh yes, they. Are. Oh yes, they are. So in other words, if you're not that guy. Get go, get some money, improve your looks. Go to the gym. Don't worry. Don't show up. Trust me. 

There was one Tuesday that he didn't come to the movie because he had to stay home and like, study for something. So he texted me in the middle of the movie and was like. Oh, I should have come with you guys. Like, I'm not really getting a lot of studying done, whatever. And I texted him back immediately. I was like, I'm not. I'm not letting this man think that I'm, like, lingering on his text like I'm. I'm texting back. And so texting back. And I was like, oh, like, don't worry, like, the movie is not that great. You're not missing out too much. And he text me again. He's like. Aren't you in the movie? Why are you like texting right now? How are you able to text me? And I texted him back all and I said when a cute boy texts you, you answer and he goes. Are you flirting with me? 

Duh and or hello. 

And I was in the middle of this movie like, this is all going down. While I was watching Buzz Lightyear, I was like shaking in the middle of the movie. And I even went. I went to the bathroom. I was like, so nervous because I really like this guy. And I, like, knew there was something special and different about him. 

In other words, he had money and he could give me a lifestyle that I currently couldn't give myself. That's what she means. 

And I go well, it depends. And he said depends on what and I said depends on if you want me to be the next day we went on our first date and he asked me to be his girlfriend at. The end of the first date and. The rest was history. 

You can't make this stuff up. So in her own words, she's in the streets. She had her fun. She's on a roller coaster and now all of a sudden she wants to repackage it. And now this goofy *** dude. The part of the problem in today's society, especially in the church, is the women have tons of experience and the men have this next to 0, if not 0. So the playing feels completely uneven. And then the women will select the men that they know they can get a better life from. Leveraging all their experience against the men's lack thereof, and then the men get exploited. But we we see it, we don't see it that as predatory even though it is you find your prey, you stalk your prey. Is that not predatory? Tell me I am lion. But my friends, you see here, that's the problem in the church today is we have women like that who come in the church out of nowhere. And then these these goofy dudes. Marry them not knowing their past, not knowing any of these things, cause they're not incentivized to ask. They're incentivized to forgive and forget. They're incentivized to say, oh, she's been redeemed by the blood and lamb. And I need to move on because she's now my sister in Christ and all this stuff. Meanwhile, you know nothing about the the blinds of cocoa she was doing. You have no idea about how the. I mean, dude, she's been with you have no idea about how your guy #5011 and you have no, no, nothing about this zero, nothing. You don't know anything about it because you didn't ask, but she technically didn't lie. But she knew that if she told you, you might think. You might think twice, so she didn't tell. See, this is what pastors should be telling men to ask. But they don't do it. Because they know what they did, they get shamed, they get attacked by women, they get gaslit because women are supposed to check other women. It's not supposed to be me or any other man who checks women, the waste of time it is supposed to be. When you check other women. And there was a time where they did that, now they don't. So you as a man have to decide whether you're going to take a raw deal. Or you're going to try to repair the relationship dating marketplace, which is not going to happen, or you gotta go your own way, develop your own personal philosophy and forge your own path. The decision is yours. My friends, you have any comments, questions, concerns, criticisms. Critiques, love, hatred, whatever. Feel free to leave it in the comments section on my ex page at Sheep gets cheered. Wherever you find it, you're welcome to do. It my friends, I just encourage you to to ask questions. Stay vigilant, keep yourself informed. And hopefully you'll have the courage to develop your own personal philosophy about this.