Roger Marsh: Welcome to Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. Do you ever think about how the world around us is constantly under attack by the enemy? God's designed for gender, for example, one of those biblical truths that's currently in the crosshairs of today's broken culture. So what do we as Christians do about it? Well, our guest today here on Family Talk is Dr. Del Tackett, and he recently spoke at an event held by Dr. Dobson in 2022 that he hopes will ignite a deeper conversation about the moral crisis enveloping our kids and families. Now, if you're not familiar with Dr. Del Tackett, he is a dear friend of the Dobson's. Dr. Dobson has long admired Del's straightforward no bones approach to theology. He's the creator of The Truth Project, a worldwide initiative designed to instill and reaffirm a biblical worldview within the body of Christ. He is also best known for his documentary called, Is Genesis History?
Currently, Dr. Tackett is an instructor for the Truth Project. He's also an adjunct professor for Alliance Defending Freedom as well as Summit Ministries and Impact 360. He is also a retired United States Air Force officer and served at the White House as Director of Technical Planning for the National Security Council under the George H.W. Bush administration. Dr. Tackett earned his doctorate degree from Colorado Technical University. Del and his wife, Melissa, have been married for over 50 years and together they have four grown children and make their home in Colorado. Let's listen now to this special presentation from Dr. Del Tackett right here on Family Talk.
Dr. Del Tackett: Let me lay out some waypoints for us and we'll use those waypoints to help us understand our times. The first waypoint comes from Romans as the spirit of God is moving Paul to speak to the Christians who were in a very difficult situation in Rome and the surrounding areas, and that verse, we'll come back and pick all of that up, but it's a waypoint for us is that. "And God gave them over to a depraved mind." The second passage comes from Nahum, the Book of Nahum, and it is a judgment statement by God to Nineveh. You wouldn't play well today in our culture, but I think you'll understand it. It's what God said to them. And he said this, "Behold your troops are like women in your midst and your gates of your land are laid open before your enemies."
The first passage in Romans is basically the end of a progression that occurs there when a people begin to turn away from God. And the wording there is they exchange the truth of God for a lie. And when the people do this, there is a progression associated with that in God giving these people over to something. And when they do not repent, He then gives them over to the second. And when they do not repent, He gives them over to the third. And the first is that God then gives them over to sexual immorality. And this is the sexual immorality that occurs in the male, female reign. The sexual immorality that we understood was sexual immorality for many, many years up until recently. It's not difficult to think about how that might apply to our culture because when we rolled over from the 1800s into the 1900s, a lot of things begin to change in our country.
And before that, even though there were a lot of different opinions, we even had a civil war and so forth, there was a common biblical worldview throughout this country and we understood the morality and immorality and the boundaries associated with sexual immorality, male, female sexual immorality. And then things began to change, almost as if God had given us over to sexual impurity. And there was no repentance, there was no returning away from that. And then the Scripture says that God then gives them over to shameful lusts and then it describes those and these are also found in the sexual area, but they no longer apply to male and female. Now they applied male and male and female, female and others. And of course that happened in our culture and many of you remember when it was almost like a breathless change, almost like an overnight change, almost as if we had been given over to shameful lusts.
And that moved all the way up to the Supreme Court decision and the White House being lit up with rainbow colors. The third in the progression here is that God then gives a people who have exchanged the truth of God and then have been given over to sexual impurity and have run that course to its fullest without repentance and God gives them over to shameful lust and they begin to run that to its full course that God then gives them over to a depraved mind. And I had pondered this for a long time and wondered because I was wondering, has God given us over to a depraved mind? By the way, that's not to be depressing. I'm working on an article, I'm going to title it "The Optimism of Jesus," and we are a people of hope. In fact, I hope we're will end here by talking about the fact that this is our time.
But that a culture now given over to a depraved mind, what does that mean? What would it be like if you sat next to someone who had been given over to a depraved mind? Would you know it? The Greek word is a adokimon, and a adokimon is a word that basically implies something that has become unqualified. And so what does a qualified mind look like that we might then understand what an unqualified mind looks like and began to ponder that God had given us such a remarkable mind and a mind that could respond, remember when God reaches out and says, "Come let us reason together." Thus sayeth the Lord. And so we have been given a mind that has the capacity to logically understand, to have common sense. It's a sanity associated with the reality of life.
And so a mind and a people who have been given over to a depraved mind are a people that no longer can think logically, especially in terms of God's truth, a mind that may appear to be disconnected from reality. A mind that can no longer connect the dots between actions and consequences, cause and effect. The people of God should have a worldview that looks at the world around us and connects the dots. We have the ability to look at the consequences associated with actions. And when we see consequences and we try to call attention to the fact, well, this is because of this, and the world around us goes ballistic, we need to recognize and accept the possibility that God may have given us over to a depraved mind.
And I offer that to you not to be depressing, but I offer that to you, why? Because the sons of Issachar and so forth, that we understand the world, we understand the times in which we live so that we might know what the people of God should do and it could well be my friends that it is time for us to recognize that we can no longer approach first with our logic. The second waypoint, the statement of judgment upon Nineveh and Babylon and Assyria. Your troops have become as women in your midst when your gate is now laid bare before your enemies.
I want to take us back to what I think is fundamental understanding what is happening in our culture, especially when it comes to the fact that you and I are now embroiled, our whole culture is embroiled in a spiritual war against the design of God in human sexuality. And even deeper than that, the war against mankind. The reality is as we learn in Ephesians that our battle is not against flesh and blood and we need to keep that in mind to remember that because it should drive us to our knees constantly that the world of flesh and the enemy hates the image of God and he hates that image of God that is implanted within humanity.
Roger Marsh: You're listening to Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh, jumping in for a moment here just to remind you that you're listening to a special presentation by Dr. Del Tackett. This was recorded last year at the JDFI event curated by Dr. Dobson, especially for today and these times. Del Tackett is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and he's the creator of the Truth Project, a small group initiative designed to instill a biblical worldview within the body of Christ. Now let's rejoin Dr. Del Tackett and hear the conclusion of his presentation on the topic of gender confusion and the spiritual war behind it right here on Family Talk.
Dr. Del Tackett: When God created male and female, can you believe this, they were different. And they were not only different physically, but they were different mentally and emotionally. They were different in their purposes. And let me lay this out for you as quickly as we can because I think it's helpful for us as we discern and understand the times in which we live that God created the noble male and He created the virtuous female. And both of them were driven by two engines. The noble male was driven first, the lead engine was the engine that drove him for truth and wisdom and righteousness. And the second engine in his train was what drove him for grace and compassion.
The virtuous female has those engines as well, but they're in a different order because her lead engine drives her towards grace and compassion. But she has the engine that drives her towards truth and righteousness and wisdom as well. And so in essence, and what I want to focus on is what has happened as we've lost the noble male and lost the virtuous female. And that has happened in our culture. Why? Because we've rejected the truth of God. And when you reject the truth of God, think of what this does to what should be the noble male and the virtuous female.
The noble male now loses the lead engine. And when that happens, the male descends into one of two things. He either descends into the brutish beast or he descends into the buffoon. The brutish beast, we have seen over centuries, we see it today in certain countries, women are oppressed by the brutish beast. He exists within our culture. They lead gangs, they beat their wives. But there's also the buffoon, that is the side that we've tipped to in Western culture. We see him out of Hollywood constantly. Everyone Loves Raymond, the show. He's a buffoon. We see it in the comics, whether that's Dagwood or Zits or whatever. We see it on our children's books. The Berenstain Bears, the papa bear is nothing more than a buffoonish cub in a grownup body. And mama bear just rolls her eyes constantly at him.
The virtuous female, think about what happens to her because this is most important to us, especially in our culture, western culture and ours. And that is that when we reject truth, what happens is that her drive for grace and compassion is no longer bridled by wisdom. It is no longer bridled by truth. It is no longer bridled by righteousness. And so what has happened is we have tipped, and I will say this in the right way, we've tipped to the feminine side. That's not the virtuous female, but this is a grace and a compassion that is unbridled. And so what has happened in our culture having tipped to this side, we have now elevated to what I would say the prime ethic. The prime ethic in our culture today is compassion. But it is not a compassion bridled by truth and righteousness and wisdom. And I call it a malevolent compassion. It is a malevolent compassion that feigns a benevolent heart, but its end is death.
Let me talk about the third waypoint I didn't mention to you. Now it is an incredible little passage hidden away in Proverbs, a jewel. And it says this, "The mercy of the wicked is cruel." The mercy of the wicked is cruel. I would submit to you that virtually all of public policy today is driven by compassion, but it's a malevolent compassion. Why? Because it's a compassion just unbridled by truth and wisdom and righteousness. It is a compassion that drives us to embrace that which is evil and wicked and wrong, but is embraced in the context of compassion. But is a malevolent compassion. And I would submit to you, if you go through your mind today and think of all of the burning issues associated with what's going on, I will tell you that we are there because of malevolent compassion. What is happening at our border today and why are we there?
And I will tell you we're there because of policy that is driven by the prime ethic in our culture of malevolent compassion. Go down the list. Every one of them, we appeal over and over again to compassion. Well, what does this do to the male in a culture when all of a sudden his fundamental purpose is lost? He has no fundamental purpose if we no longer have absolute truth, and therefore true righteousness and therefore a true wisdom. And so he has no purpose anymore.
And so the way that the male in our culture now has been led to believe that he can be significant is if he becomes more feminine. And that means if he can show himself to be more compassionate, then he will be significant in this culture. And that is why we have seen recently this fear of labor shift for the first time in the history of Western culture and our culture, the sphere of labor itself now shift to the other side of the stadium. And not only do they boo us, but they now have the power to cancel you financially and so forth. Why? Because they're signaling their compassion, but is a malevolent compassion that will end in dire consequences.
See, the noble male has compassion, the virtuous female driven by compassion, but that is bridled by truth and righteousness and wisdom. The noble male may want to kick the little birdie out of the nest in April. And the virtuous female say, "I think he needs another month." And by the end of May, they both kick him out of the nest. Why? Because her grace and compassion is bridled by truth and wisdom and righteousness, and his desire for truth and wisdom and righteousness is bridled by grace and compassion. And so with some fear and trembling, I want to draw on some imagery for you here from the Book of Revelation. And I want to call your attention to remember that very strange imagery that is given to us in Revelation where the harlot rides the beast. And I think that it's proper to apply that imagery today. Why? Because the harlot is the female in extremely distorted form. Using her feminine, what should be Godly, pursuits and godly characteristics of her femininity and so forth, uses her femininity now for the destruction of people and cultures and men.
And she's riding on top of this beast like Western culture. The Western culture is all bought into this notion that the prime ethic before us is compassion, but it's a malevolent compassion. We need to understand and we need to teach our children because quite frankly, our culture right now has bought into the notion, the default that all compassion is good. It's not. We know this because God himself disciplines us, does he not? And the scripture says that discipline, we don't like it. Someone might be standing on the side and look at us and say, that's uncompassionate for that discipline to be meted out. Oh, no. Why does God discipline us? Because He loves us. See, it is the truth and righteousness and wisdom that is being also driven by grace and compassion. That is who God is and He disciplines us, why? Because of His grace and His compassion.
Remember the verse that says if a man won't work, then he will not eat? That would be called horribly unpassionate today. And yet why does the scripture say that? Because it is compassionate to keep a man from eating if he won't work. Oh, we're driven the other way, are we not? We're driven by a malevolent compassion that pays people not to work. And now we can't find workers. And so common sense would say, well, if you pay people not to work, then they won't work. That's logical.
So let's close this up. I want us to think about what the people of God should do because that's what wisdom of understanding the times drives us to. It doesn't drive us into some "Poor is me, woe is me, the sky is falling," because we are a people of hope. But I think it should call us to think through with wisdom how we approach a world that may be given over to a depraved mind. How do we approach a world that has bought the lie of the enemy that compassion is always good, that it should be the prime ethic in our culture?
Not long ago, I had some time with a good friend of mine from the Netherlands and he was lamenting what had happened to the Netherlands. And he said this, he said, "We've lost the Netherlands in one generation," in one generation. And he said, "You can put now the evangelical Christians in the Netherlands in one building and have trouble finding them." We should never get to the point where we think that God can't do the same to us. We could lose America in one generation. We could. But what is amazing about this is that there is a huge remnant left in this land. We have been shaking our fist in the face of God for a long time, and by now we should look like the Netherlands. By now, we should look like England and France and Germany and so forth. But we do not. Why? Because there's a huge remnant here. Why? Because God has left a remnant here. And if God has left a remnant here, then he is not done with us.
But do not become arrogant and think that God could not pull the rug out from underneath us. This is what calls the people of God to prayer. It calls us to be on our knees before God. It calls it to ask Him for the wisdom we need to understand the times in which we live, so that we might know what the people of God should do. And so I will borrow the phrase from a great statesman, it's the statesman that Dr. Dobson has great respect for, Winston Churchill. "To say, my friends, we cannot ignore the reality of the times in which we live. These are difficult times. And if we were not a people of hope, then we might say that this is our final hour. But I think instead we should say this will be our finest hour." And the body of Christ will begin that process of engaging the people around them and that God will hear the prayers of that family and those families and the people around this world, and they will begin to grant repentance and that the people of God will stand strong.
Roger Marsh: Dr. Del Tackett certainly brings up some good points about understanding the times we live in. And if you missed any part of his presentation or if you'd like to share this thought, thought-provoking discussion with a friend or a family member, visit our website at drjamesdobson.org.
Now, before we leave for today, I'd like to speak directly to the men who are listening. Guys, it can be a tough road to hoe, the pressure of work, career, seems like the world is moving faster and faster, there's not enough time to invest in the lives of your children or to help your wife, let alone find some quality time together with just you and your spouse. I know that so much is being asked of men these days and finding time for personal growth and awareness and growing closer to God can be a real challenge, but we want you to know that the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute is here for you with an abundance of resources, encouragement, and written material as well.
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Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.