Men: Don’t Be Lusty Stallions, But Be Stallions

Men are confused. We live in a confused and confusing culture. What does a “real man” look like? How does a “real man” act? How does a “real man” treat women, and especially his wife? Here’s a unique and important encouragement for men from Justin Buzzard:

Until yesterday I didn’t know that the phrase “lusty stallions” was in the Bible.

__They were well-fed, lusty stallions,
_____each neighing for his neighbor’s wife.
___________________________(Jer 5:8)

Here God is describing the men of Judah, men who had no more control than lusty stallions. Having abandoned God, these men naturally abandoned faithfulness to their wives and each went “neighing for his neighbor’s wife.”

Men, don’t be lusty stallions.

But, be stallions.

The alternative to being a lusty stallion isn’t to be a gelding—a castrated man drained of passion, testosterone, and drive.

Be a stallion. Be a passionate, strong, happy, faithfully monogamous stallion who goes the way of Proverbs 5:15-22, not Jeremiah 5:8.

__Drink water from your own cistern,
_____flowing water from your own well.
__Should your springs be scattered abroad,
_____streams of water in the streets?
__Let them be for yourself alone,
_____and not for strangers with you.
__Let your fountain be blessed,
_____and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
_____a lovely deer, a graceful doe
__Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
_____be intoxicated always in her love
__Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
_____and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
__For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
_____and he ponders all his paths.
__The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
_____and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
__He dies for lack of discipline,
_____and because of his great folly he is led astray.

Our culture presents men with two paths: be a bravado-soaked lusty stallion or be a testosterone-drained gelding.  The Bible offers men a third way, the path of true manhood: be a stallion.  Be a stallion trained and disciplined by the gospel, a stallion set free to run wild according to God’s gracious design.