Welcome And Why Words Matter

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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christians' armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Stockdale’s Morse Code Act Of Defiance

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The year is 1966, and the location is North Vietnam. United States Navy Vice Admiral and Aviator James Stockdale has been placed in front of a camera. He has been a prisoner of war for almost a year. At this point, he has been tortured in many ways. He's had both of his shoulders dislocated. He's been beaten repeatedly. He has been kept in isolation, and he has been deprived of sleep. He's in the process now of being forced to participate in a propaganda film that will be broadcast internationally with the intention of proving that American POWs are being treated well by the enemy. So the cameras begin rolling, and Stockdale looks directly into the lens of the camera and begins to blink. Dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot. To the astute observer, Stockdale is using Morse code, and slowly and deliberately he delivers a short message. S O S. And after that, he continues to signal one word on repeat. T O R T U R E. Torture. This propaganda is broadcast around the globe, and the incredible intelligence analysts for the United States military received the message loud and clear. It is the first confirmed evidence during the Vietnam War that American prisoners of war are being systematically tortured. The North Vietnamese figured out what James Stockdale did as well, and the beatings and torture began to get much, much worse. Stockdale spends seven and a half years at the Hanoi Hilton. For four of those years, he was in solitary confinement. He is tortured relentlessly, and on one such occasion, he is told that he is going to be paraded through the streets of Hanoi in a propaganda display. So he takes a concealed razor and slices his own scalp open so that the blood will run down over his face and disfigure it too much for the film to be effective. And even after seven and a half years of torture and captivity, he emerged from the situation unbroken. He had maintained his resolve. He had been forged.

Control The Controllables Over False Hope

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So it became clear that one of the main reasons for Stockdale's survival was because he controlled the controllables. He could not control the circumstances, and he could not control what was happening to him, but he was in full control of how he responded. So he was later asked in an interview what kind of men did not survive the Hanoi Hilton as he had. And without hesitation, Stockdale answered, the optimists. It was the men that said, We'll be home by Christmas, only for Christmas to come and go for them and them still be stuck. Then they would say, Well, certainly we'll be home by Easter, only for Easter to come and go and for their circumstances to stay the exact same. Stockdale said that eventually all of the optimists died of broken hearts. He would go on to say that the men who survived were the ones that recognized the dire nature of their circumstances and simultaneously resolved to not let it be the end of them.

Paul’s Prison Wisdom On Suffering

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So let's talk about the Apostle Paul. He wrote many of his letters to several churches that ended up being a huge chunk of the New Testament, and he did so from prison. He did a lot of his writing from prison. I mean, and also during his public ministry, he suffered beatings, shipwrecks, snake bites, and you know, some physical thorn in the flesh that he begged God on multiple occasions to remove. And so he's not writing theoretically when he says this, as recorded in 2 Corinthians 4, verses 8 through 10. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. So guys, make sure you key in on this. The point is not that we are not afflicted. It's that we are afflicted, but we are not crushed. It's not that we have no perplexity, it's that even in the midst of our circumstances we are not to despair. You see, Paul is holding two disparate ideas and tension here, just like Stockdale did. He's not denying the weight of the negative circumstances he's in, while at the same time, he is denying that he has no control over himself in those circumstances. And regardless of what some people might lead you to believe, the Christian life is not sanitized of suffering. One of the main cornerstones of the Christian walk is that we will be sustained by God through our suffering. The reason why Paul was able to write the letters that became much in the New Testament is because at some point he realized that God was bigger than his chains and ailments.

Are You Agreeing With Circumstances

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And as we close out the week, I want you to think through this question. Have you made an agreement with your negative circumstances that is preventing you from relying on God? Again, remember what Stockdale said about the optimists. He didn't say that the optimists were wrong because they had hope. It was because they had false hope. They had hope built on some fanciful timeline and on their circumstances improving, but it was ultimately baseless. But biblical hope is different, right? I mean, if you actually read your Bible and don't just assume you know what it says, you will see that sometimes circumstances suck, and they're going to suck for a long time. The moral of the story is that we will not be crushed and we will not be forsaken and we will not be destroyed because the Lord our God is our protector and provider.

Resilience Over Optimism And The Week’s Pattern

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I mean, just look at what we've seen this week. We've seen people stranded in the Antarctic. We've seen men adrift in shark-infested waters, we've seen POW camps, we've seen a man stuck in a canyon, we've seen a man mauled by a grizzly in the middle of nowhere. I mean, what did all these men have in common? None of them were rescued quickly. None of them had an easy road out. None of them received comfort and sustenance when they needed it most. But they did all have this in common. They reckoned with the dire nature of their circumstances and they resolved themselves to press forward in the face of chaos. They were resilient. They didn't rely on optimism or posy vibes, they relied on steadfastness. Some of you are in the process of forging right now, and some of you are questioning why the fire came in the first place. What you need to realize is that the fire was always going to come for you. The question shouldn't be, will I survive this fire? It should be, what will God be able to create with me after this forging?

Stay Sharp And Share The Show

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Thank you for your attention this week. Stay sharp.

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Thank you for listening to today's episode. Before you go, if you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five star rating and review. Stay sharp.