In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of heeding the cautions of Christ in our homes. He highlights the warnings given by Jesus, the apostles, and the Bible itself. The preacher also emphasizes the need to teach the Word of God in our homes on a daily basis, rather than relegating it to just Sundays. He encourages creating a spirit of love, kindness, and forgiveness in our homes, avoiding negative talk and contention. The sermon concludes with a call to anticipate the return of Christ and to hold fast to the teachings of the Bible.

Thanks, Emily. Can you see a bright light in our church, Emily? Blessing to me. This afternoon, we had quite an afternoon. It's Mother's Day, so that's always sweet. And we have a little tradition in our home where everybody writes a letter to Mom, and then we have everybody read it to Mom and try to get through that without crying, which, of course, never happens. And today we have a little something special because we have a couple birds that have flown the nest, and I had arranged with them ahead of time to have their letters ready to read over the speaker phone. And it was kind of sweet because when that happened, once they leave home, it's sort of a little different. And Heidi got on the phone, started to read her letter, got about two words out, and she cried for a while. And I looked around the table, so everybody was crying. So we had a great time. And what a beautiful thing family love is. And there was something in almost every one of the letters that the kids mentioned without conferring with one another, and it was certainly in my letter to Lois. And that was appreciation for the atmosphere that Lois has always created in our homes wherever we live. She's just always had a way of making the home a comfortable place where people want to be, and it's created a warm atmosphere. I love a home that smells good with, like, coffee or pumpkin pie or roast beef. Can I get a witness on that? Just a night. Yeah, you like that? Yeah, grizzle with me on that one. I like that. I like to come home on Sunday and smell the roast not burned, you know what I mean? And there's something important about the atmosphere of our homes. But what I want to talk about tonight is something that's deeper than that and similar, and that is the spirit of our homes. Tonight I want to ask you, what is the spirit of your home? In a few minutes that we have here tonight, this is what I'd like for us to think about. And it's what I want to kind of encourage those of you who are on the platform here with your little ones just to think about tonight. And the rest of you, of course, can listen in, and I think it will be encouraging to all of you. But think about that just for a minute. If you had to identify the spirit of your home, what would it be? What is the spirit of your home? What is the theme that dominates your home? What is the governing principle of your home? What's the unifying idea in your home? What's the basic message that your home speaks to people who come there? What is the general impression of your home? What is the prevailing spirit of your home? And what do I mean when I talk about the atmosphere and the spirit? It's kind of my designation, so I should probably define my terms. The spirit of your home, as I'm using it here tonight, is the atmosphere of your home, which is created by the attitudes of the people who live there or the unseen spiritual influences for good or for evil. It's that spirit your home has. John 12.3 is not my text. We'll have many passages we'll see tonight. But in John 12.3, we have that touching picture there of the anointing of the Lord Jesus in Bethany. Mary took a pound of very costly oil, a spikenard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Not one beautiful song has been, not just one beautiful song, but many have been written about this picture of the fragrance that filled the house. The fragrance of Mary's worship, her devotion to Jesus Christ. That fragrance flooded the house. So what fragrance is in your house? Let me just kind of stimulate you thinking a little bit. Is there a spirit of tension in your home? Or is there a spirit of order? A spirit of contention? Or a spirit of peace? Is your home filled with a spirit of selfishness? Or do you have in your home a spirit of love? Is in your home a spirit of error? Or a spirit of truth? Is your home, is there a spirit of heaviness? Or is there a spirit of praise in your home? How about this, is there a spirit of sorrow? Or a spirit of joy in your home? What's your home like? Is there a spirit of greed? Or a spirit of giving? Is there a spirit of criticism in your home? Or is there a spirit of encouragement in your home? Is your home flooded with a spirit of courtesy? Or rudeness? Excellence and stewardship? Or sloth and sloppiness? Sensuality? Or illegitimate sensuality? Or purity? What is the spirit of your home? Is it a spirit of uncleanness? Or is it a spirit of holiness? These are worthwhile things to think about, don't you think? Well, the spirit of Christ is such a powerful spirit, and universal, all-pervading, omnipotent, everywhere-present spirit, that the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ is capable of dominating and driving out every other spirit where He's welcomed. Like, for instance, Colossians 1 and verse 18, that in all things He would have the preeminence. The spirit of Christ brings with it the spirit of truth, the spirit of love, the spirit of order, the spirit of praise, the spirit of reverence, the spirit of worship. That's the spirit that you want in your home. Driving out every other dark spirit in your home. I love to think about Galatians too. And this is really what we're talking about. We're not talking about inanimate things. We're talking about the people whose spirits reside in your house and the spirit of God in your house. The people who have the spirit of God in them who live in your house. And do they allow the Holy Spirit to control them and fill them in your house? That will determine the spirit of your home. And then that makes you think about Galatians 5, verses 22 and 23 that are contrasted there in Galatians 5. The works of the flesh and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And then you have this gorgeous list of fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is, think about these things in your home. Love, joy, peace, patience, long-suffering, kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. That would make a home, the humblest, most modest home, a beautiful place if the people that live in that home were controlled by the Holy Spirit and these fruits came into it. That's the kind of home you want to have. That's the kind of people you want to be. Am I right? So when hearts are fixed on the worship of Jesus and when the parties that live in the home are living under the control of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus dominates every other spirit in your home. How can you have that kind of a spirit? I'm going to suggest some things tonight. But they're going to involve some people. First of all, before I give you these things, a Spirit-filled father helps a lot. A dad who's born again and who's yielded to God, who's filled with the Holy Spirit, whose heart is tender to God. It's a very powerful thing. This is not a day that goes by that I don't thank God in Heaven for so many men like this in our own church. I know you men would be the first to say how imperfect you are and how often you fail and how many things you have to work on. But I have seen in many of our men here a sincere desire to love their family, to love God, to seek God, to be a Spirit-filled man. And I want to encourage you today. A godly man is such a powerful force to bless and to influence a home. It's the way it ought to be. It's the way the ultimate man, Jesus Christ, designed it to be a Spirit-filled father. Think of the Spirit-filled men in the Bible like that. A Spirit-filled mother whose heart is devoted to the worship of Jesus in her home, a quiet spirit of faith and submission to the will of God contributes to a home like that. Do you know that children can be filled with the Holy Spirit too? Born-again children can be filled with the Holy Spirit. And they ought to be. You shouldn't wait around. Every once in a while I get this stirring in my soul about young people seeking God and studying the things of God and reading books about the things of God and talking about finer points of theology and loving the things of God. Here in our church, I imagine, I think of kids getting up early in the morning and staying up late at night and going on retreats and setting aside things that might be fun so that they can dig into God's Word so they can seek the things of God. Spirit-filled young people. Think of the beauty of that. It's a beautiful thing to see an old man who's walked with the Lord many, many years and watched how he can look at you and he can tell you of the experiences of following Christ. Or a dear elderly woman who makes her way out of church on a Sunday morning with a walker and even though she can barely walk, she's influenced dozens of people that her whole life probably scores, maybe hundreds of people have been influenced by her. But you have to admit, there's something beautiful about the flower of youth bending toward the Son of righteous young people who are serving God, who love God, stay awake in church, look in their Bibles, have their personal devotions, witness to people. When you find a young person like that, you're like, what planet did this kid come from? Isn't that wonderful to see that? And it pleases me to see so many young people like that here. I love what it says in Isaiah 44, 3 and 4. It's a promise of the fullness of the Holy Spirit to young people. I love it. I will pour water on him who is thirsty and floods on the dry ground and I will pour out My Spirit on your children, your descendants, your seed and My blessing on your offspring and they will spring up like grass, like willows by the watercourses. This is a promise of spiritual vitality to young people, to children and to young people who know the Lord. So let's stop here before we go any farther and let's just ask ourselves this question. If we desire the homes that are desaturated with the beautiful fragrance of the fruit of the Spirit of God, if you're a man, are you a Spirit-filled man in your home? If you're a woman, are you a Spirit-filled woman? If you're a young man, are you a Spirit-filled young man? If you're a young woman, are you a Spirit-filled young woman? Yield to the Holy Spirit. Eager to serve Him. Quick to put away sin. Eager to get into the Word of God. That's the question because people like that who live in a home will bring with them a powerful Spirit of a living God. How can you have the Spirit of Christ dominate your home? Just some pastoral thoughts tonight. Very simple things. And I think there are six of them. First, here's an idea from the Bible. Teach the Word of God in your home. Teach the Word of God in your home. And that shouldn't be all for church. You know that. Deuteronomy 6. We're going to launch into a series, Lord willing, next Sunday. And we're going to spend five or six weeks in Deuteronomy 6. But you know what it says there. It says every day when you get up in the morning and when you go through the day and when you go to bed at night, you teach the truth about God's Word in your home. A Christian home is not a home that gets out its Jesus on Sunday and kind of dusts it off, you know, and then goes to church. You know that, right? A Christian home is a 24-hour a day, seven days a week enterprise serving the Lord. And teaching is a part of that. We're always talking about the Lord. We're always teaching about the Lord. We're always conscious of giving a little bit of a lesson or another step forward. Ephesians 6.4 It says that you fathers, don't provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Dads, it specifically says in the Bible, if you're a dad, it's your sacred privilege to train and to teach your children. What a pity if a boy can catch a baseball and use his meat hand and bat both ways, but he doesn't know his books of the Bible and he doesn't know his way around the Bible and he doesn't even have a well-worn Bible. What a tragedy that that is! And whose fault is that? His dad should have taken in hand to teach him the things of the Lord. That's what the Bible says. Some of you are probably sitting here and you're thinking, there's no dad in my home though. Well, we have a spirit of sympathy for you, but I will tell you something. He has a greater sympathy for you than we do. And he does more than sympathize with women who are trying to raise kids alone. He does more than sympathize. He helps. He gives covenant promises to women who are raising children alone. You know that. He will be a father to the fatherless. He will pour Himself out in His special grace. He's promised. You claim that promise. Will you be a teacher too? Timothy. Paul says to Timothy, I see the genuine faith that's in you. That's the same genuine faith that I saw in your grandmother whose name happened to be Lois, and your mother Eunice, and the same thing in you. I love that passage. For reasons that probably ought to be obvious to you. That that genuine faith went from grandma to mom to Timothy, but there's no comment about grandpa, and there's no comment about dad. But God, in His favor, raised up this young, tall Timothy, and he had that genuine faith. His mother. His grandmother. I love that. Fathers should teach and train sons and daughters using creative means of doing that. When you're in a tree stand, or when you're paddling the canoe across the lake, or when you're going to breakfast, and when you guys have these little ones grow up, these little girls, and they grow up, and you take them out for ice cream, and you swing on the swings, and you talk about the things of God to them, they're going to know, those little girls, they're going to know that dad is in love with Jesus Christ, and that he has this passion to just put little seeds of truth in that little heart. They're going to know that that's everything to you. And that's the beautiful command that we have from the Lord. It's a command. What a wonderful command. How wonderful are the commands of God? Don't you love them? And decoration of the home is a part of this. Moms are to teach. Older should teach younger. The Bible says a husband should cleanse his wife by the washing of the water of the Word, which means Jesus, the way he did that with his bride, was he actually, in John 17 you see, that he got the Word in himself as a way of cleansing his bride. And we should do the same thing. So guys, if you want to teach your wife, the first thing is not like sit her down and kind of preach to her, but get the Word of God in you so that it's like baseball. Statistics to the guy who's just like totally crazy about baseball. It just spills out of you. You know, it's just that's the way that you are. And that's the way that you inform and that you teach gently. You've got to be careful how you do this, but that you teach your wife and you expose your wife to good things. You expose your wife. So that teaching is always going on. And moms teaching all the time, teaching their children. What a powerful thing it is. I will just say this to you tonight. If you ever derive any blessing from anything that I do, you should thank my mom when you see her because she taught me so much theology and so much of the Bible and she was so diligent about it. And a lot of times when we were in places where there were just a handful of people and it would have been so easy for my mom to say, well, it really doesn't matter. And Kenny is hyperactive. He's not listening to anything I say. The kid is trouble. Give him Valium. You know what I mean? It could have been really discouraging for my mom. But a mother's teaching is very powerful, especially when she takes the seed of the truth of the Word of God, puts it in the heart of a person. Moms, you be teachers of the Word too. And use your home to decorate like this. That's what the Bible says. Did you realize that? We'll talk about this more later in our series because this is a big chunk of Deuteronomy. But I'll visit my parents' home. I said two or three years ago, we called mom and dad and said, hey, we're going to come and visit. They said, well, that's great. What time are you going to get here? We told them. They said, well, we're not going to be there, but we'll be there within an hour or two. So you just let yourselves in and get what you want out of the fridge, make yourselves at home, and we'll be there. Well, this was really unique because I don't know that I'd ever done this before. Came home and my mom and dad weren't there. Every once in a while when I was in college, they would move while I was in college and try to lose me. But I was always really good at tracking them down. I'm like, I'm here. I'll just be showing up. Hey, I'm here. Two times they did that. But I found them and finally they just gave up and they figured they probably ought to just, you know, quit trying to lose me. So I came home. I came to my parents' house and I got in. I don't know if you remember this, but it was just sort of quiet. And I went in and I just took the liberty of walking around their house. This is going to be kind of personal, but my parents always had stuff to read everywhere, like bathroom and everywhere. So I'm like in there, like Baptist Bulletin, you know. They got in the bathroom, figured that out. And other stuff, sort of the Lord, you know, whatever stuff, you know, good stuff to read. And I go in my mom's sewing room. And in my mom's sewing room, not as ornate as some women I know, but a very nice sewing room. And in the sewing room, there's all kinds of nice stuff in there. And there's plaques about the Lord and there's literature about the things the Lord did. There's Bible tapes my mom's listening to. I go in the kitchen, there's stuff on the refrigerator. There's not a single room in that house that does not have the mark of Jesus Christ on it. And I found my heart saying, Lord, that's the kind of guy I want to be. I want the Lord Jesus to be all over my life and all over everything I touch. This is what the Bible actually teaches in Deuteronomy, chapter 6. There's an effect of this atmosphere of learning a woman has written. There are many important aspects of home life, from a child's first training to his highest education, but there's nothing in the way of direct teaching that will ever have such a wide-lasting effect as the atmosphere of the home. And so one of the ways to have the right spirit in your home is to teach the Word of Christ in your home. Another one is to sing and speak the praises of Christ in your home. That's what it says in many places in the Bible. For instance, when you talk about the fullness of the Holy Spirit in Colossians and in Ephesians, what does it immediately say? Singing to yourselves in songs and hymns and spiritual songs and singing and making melody in your heart. Christian homes got Christian music in them. You don't have Christian music, it's not really a Christian home. You don't have Christian music in your heart, you're not really a Christian person. Because that's the way it works. It's one of the ways you can tell, one of the ways you can be controlled by the Holy Spirit. The Bible says in Ephesians, chapter 5, you want to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. One of the ways to do that is continually thank God. And another way says the next thing is that you fill your life and your home and your days with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And so it's no wonder that a lot of times Christians are losing the battle with sin all the time because their minds and their hearts are filled with songs that are the complete opposite of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And you can call me a legalist if you want to, but I'm your pastor, so it's important that I remind you about this, that we talk about this, and that is one of the things you can do if you want your home to be a Christian home is to have Christian music in your home all the time. Just flood your home with Christian music. I'm speaking from experience, because I went to bed at night hearing Christian music, and I got up in the morning hearing Christian music. Now we don't all agree on our favorite kind of Christian music, right? I'm glad you're laughing. If we're voting on that, it'd be a crack up. In our own home, you would not believe the variety of music that we have in our own home. We have good music, like I like, and the other stuff that everybody else likes. It's like, figure it out, you know? But you listen and you pay attention to the spirit of that music. Does the music honor the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it carefully teaching the truth of God's Word? Is it sung or ministered by people who have a spirit of ministry, who are filled with the Holy Spirit of God? This is not something that we can afford to play with. Do you remember when Saul was oppressed by a dark spirit and God sent David to sing songs, sing spiritual life to him? And you may be discouraged, you may be depressed, you may be defeated by sin. What would happen if maybe you just flooded that out with godly music, godly singing, and you let your heart sing away those things? There are many times when my heart is discouraged, and I sing the discouragement out of my heart, singing His praise. I commend it to you. Christian homes should not have sensual music for entertainment, godless music for entertainment. You cannot defend that biblically, and you cannot escape the negative influence on that music on your people. If you want to have a spirit of Christ in your home, there are things that will grieve the spirit of God in your home. There are things that will grieve God's spirit, and you think about that. There are things that you know, there are types of entertainment, there are kinds of songs, there are kinds of attire that people wear when they sing these songs, there are modes of entertainment that you know grieve the Holy Spirit of God. That you must never do in your home. The Spirit of God must never be grieved in your home. Someday you will want His influence on your children. Someday you will want His influence in your life. Someday you will want the power of the Holy Spirit in your home. But if you have grieved Him away, and you have not the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your home, you will wish that you had. There's a soundtrack, there's music for every lifestyle, whether that's a high and holy lifestyle, or whether that's a low and worldly lifestyle. There's music that goes along with that. There's music to accompany every lifestyle. My question to you is, what lifestyle do you want in your home? I get to visit my little grandsons every once in a while. It gives you a whole new way of looking at things. When you see these little guys, and you see that they're just brand new, and they're coming up, and you just desire the very best for them. You desire the very highest things for them. You want their hearts to be flooded with truth. You want them to have every single possible advantage. That's what you want to do, is sing the praises, speak and sing. Just talk about Jesus and sing about Jesus. Not to be overcome with the blare of the TV all the time, or the computer, or the video player, or the other godless Trojan horses that kind of make their way in. I'm not saying you shouldn't have a TV. I've got a TV in my home. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's bad. Not the poison of criticism. If you can't say anything good, mom used to say, don't say anything at all, right? But there's a lot of that bad talk in the home. That will kill the spirit of your home. Not the din of contention. In Ephesians 4, verse 32 it says, Be kind to one another, and tender hearted, and forgive one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Christian homes should be places where people talk nice. And may God convict you if you point the finger at some fornicator, or some drunk, and you go home and you talk nasty, you talk mean, you talk angry in your home. That's not Christian. It's not. Think about it. Why do I say that to you? I say it to you to just stir you up and to stimulate. Because there are sins that we tolerate a lot as Christians. You can get away with being a leader in the church, and these sins can just be continually poisoning the spirit of your home. And wouldn't it be wonderful to come tonight and just say, you know what, God, show me something. I'm going to repent of that. I'm going to ask forgiveness. This is going to be a different day in our home. And you know, some of you that would not ever think about bringing alcohol in your home, and you shouldn't, and you wouldn't ever think about bringing some kind of R-rated video with a bunch of filthy language and nudity on it in your home, you know, are you sure that you're free of a contentious spirit? Are you sure that you're free of a spirit of pride? Are you sure that you're free of a spirit of complaining and murmuring? And the Bible says those kinds of things can be as damaging, maybe more insidious, than those kind of outward sins of the flesh. So this is, how do you get those things out of your home? You displace them with good talk. And the things, talk about the things of the Lord. Praise God. Sing the praises of God. Speak the praises of God. Talk about the finer things of God. Let your conversation be pleasing to God in your home. And what that will do is that will drive out those other things that would just poison the atmosphere of your home like murmuring and discontent. Third thing. One was teach the Word of Christ in your home if you want the Spirit of Christ in your home. Two, sing and speak the praises of Christ in your home if you want the Spirit of Christ in your home. Third, model the love of Christ in your home. 1 Corinthians 13 would be an example of that. Just to get up every morning and say, how can I be selfless? How can I model the love of Christ? What can I do for others? How can I live for others? And I don't want to say too much about this but over and over again in those letters today it was like, Mom, you gave this up for us. Fourth, respect the order of Christ in your home. I want to be gentle here but hear this out. The Bible is very clear that there's an order in the home. It's not politically correct to talk about it but there's an order of authority in the church. There's an order of authority in civil government. There's an order of authority wherever God has ordained. There's authority. There are people that answer to other people. There are people that watch over and protect those beneath their authority. That's the way God made His world. That if that order is disrespected in the home you can't expect not to grieve away the Spirit of God. What am I getting at? In other words, men, are you under the authority of Jesus Christ? Are you your own man? You do what you want to do. You go where you want to go. You say what you want to say. You spend what you want to spend. Or do you yield to Jesus? If somebody can call you on that. Say, what does the Bible say? And you have to yield. And you live in humble submission to those who are in authority over you. In the church, in the government, in your work. Therefore, you have the right to come home and say, Sweetheart, let me help you to be in a place where God's blessing can be on you. And she says, yes, I can see that you're protecting me. I can see that you're giving me wise, godly counsel and direction. I can see that you're selfless. I willingly place myself under your protection and under your authority. That's getting to be a foreign language in the church. You don't even hear Christian ladies talking about that anymore. But it's the order of Christ. And if the order of Christ is respected in the home, then the hand of God's blessing is in the home. So I say this with great love to you. And that is we all struggle with being under authority. Some people are like, why would I have to drive 45 miles an hour here? There isn't a construction worker within two states of this place. Just orange barrels. Why do I have to drive 45? Makes no sense. Or whatever it is, you know. You say this and that. Why, you know, my husband's idea there isn't right. It's not smart. Well, the Scriptures speak a lot about submission, about the spirit of submission. As a matter of fact, in a passage earlier I was talking about in Ephesians, chapter 5 was talking about how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And it gives you ideas about how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. One of those ideas about how to be filled with the Holy Spirit is speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And one of them is submitting to one another in the fear of the Lord. So you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit. One thing you do is, okay, go around and ask, whose authority am I under, and get under it. And then you'll know that you're under God's authority. Like, that's a thought. Did you ever think of that one? It's like, doesn't sound like fun. I remember one time we were starting a church, and we were trying to decide how the church should be governed. And it occurred to me, I want the blessing of the Lord in my life, so I want to know whose authority am I under. I want to figure out whose authority am I under. I want to obey. So that God will mediate His guidance and His protection and His provision to the people that God's put an authority over me. And you say, well, we've got a bunch of rebellious young people around here. Well, that's sometimes because they've had years of watching rebellious moms and rebellious dads, and they're rebellious like their mom and dad. And apparently the same parent that will say, you need to obey me, doesn't obey anybody. And I've had a lot of times in churches where some woman will come to me and say, you know, you've got to make Johnny obey me. I'm like, why would I make him obey you? I have never seen you obey your husband in your entire life. It's in the Bible. Didn't come up with that one. You say, you're going to have to show me that one. All right. 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 3 says it. I want you to know the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man. The head of Christ is God. So if Jesus put himself under God's authority when he was very God of very God, I should put myself under Jesus' authority, and my wife should put herself under my authority and protection of love and direction, and my children should put themselves under our authority. If you're a child here and you're resisting your parents' direction and resisting your parents' counsel, don't ask, what is God's will for my life? Because you just violated God's will for your life. He's not obligated to tell you anything. It's like, go do what your mom and dad say. I remember one time a guy came to our church, his name was Larry, and he spoke at our church, and this lady came to him afterward, and she said, I need some counsel. I just have an issue that I need to deal with, and I just need some counsel. So the pastor said to my wife, Lois, he says, well, you come with me so that there's not one guy talking to two girls. And Lois reported to me, this is what the guy said. The lady says, this is my problem, and she tells her problem. The pastor says to her, what does your husband say about that? She says, well, my husband says this and this and this, and my husband says that and that and that, and the guy says, hmm, I would just suggest that you do what your husband tells you to do. And she goes, well, yeah, but, you know, yeah, okay, but, you know, what you don't understand is this, and she tells him a bunch of other stuff, and he says, well, what would your husband say? And she says, well, my husband said this and this and this, and he said, well, I see. Well, my counsel to you would be that you do what your husband says to do. And over and over again, he didn't tell her anything except, go do what your husband says. You understand there are caveats to this that are in the Bible, right? In other words, if I'm an authority in my home, and if I tell my sons, we're going out to rob a bank tonight, they're allowed to say, I must obey God rather than man and not rob the bank, right? If your husband tells you to do something that's a violation of God's law or immoral, you appeal to a higher authority. But, you know, we're not talking about that. What we're talking about is in those day-to-day operational things and that you would say, are you going to listen to the voices of our age that have not got it together, and their lives are all messed up, and they don't have the Spirit of God in their home, or are you going to believe what the Bible says and trust what the Bible says and cast yourself upon the Lord and trust Him? Not just the order of Christ. The Bible says, let all things be done decently and in order. In Titus 2, 4, and 5, it says that the older women are to admonish young women to love their husbands and to love their children, and to be discreet, and to be chaste, and to be homemakers, and to be good, and to be obedient to their husbands. Otherwise, the Word of God will be blasphemed. This is a hard thing to do. I know, I have strong women in my life, and you do too. And some of the best women in our church are strong women that don't like being told what to do all the time in their flesh. And it says that in the book of Genesis, that it was going to be like that. We're big boys. We know that's true. And we're not the only person ever that God gave a brain. It's like God gave brain to men and no brain to wife, so wife clings to husband, so he tells her how to think. The Bible doesn't teach that at all. I hope that nobody ever takes that little part out of my message, like makes it stand alone, makes me say something I didn't say. But, you know what I'm saying, that's not the way it is. And yet, this is a beautiful thing that the Lord says, you live with your wife with an understanding way, and you don't be a fool and go out there in a selfish way. You don't be a foolish man that goes out there without understanding of your wife. You don't override the wisdom of your wife. You don't treat your wife as if she doesn't have any good ideas. And the wife, you look to your husband for direction. You look to your husband for protection. You look to your husband for provision. And he's going to answer to me. That's God's way. That's His order. And then what happens in that circumstance, what's happening? You're raising kids in an atmosphere where they're watching godly love and submission all the time because they're going to have to submit to people all of their lives. That's the way it is. You're not going to make it. You guys know out there in the world, you don't make it out there. If you go out there, you're law unto yourself, and you're going to do what you're going to do. You're not going to make it. You're not going to make any money doing that. They're going to fire you. You're going to be at the bottom of the food chain. Same with women that are out there working as well, too. You know that, ladies, right? As a matter of fact, what really kind of sometimes grieves me is to see a woman who really, and I'm not picking on women, I hope you don't get that, who goes out in the workplace and she says, okay, I have to be a person under authority here because she understands how it works in the workplace, so she'll go be under somebody else's authority, but when she gets home, she won't be under her husband's authority. Am I meddling and bothering you yet? Because I don't mean to. I just think, every once in a while I wonder, is this one of those going to be lost truths that we just don't talk about anymore? Because so many men have been ungodly and selfish, are we just going to stop teaching what God says because some men don't do what they ought to do? Or are we going to say, no, this is the ideal that God says, and that every man who's here, listen to what I'm saying, you men know to be humble before the Lord and to be careful. If your wife is going to honor God and she's going to obey you and she's going to submit to you and she's going to respect you, you want to be really careful how you treat her because she has a Heavenly Father you're going to answer to someday, right? We know that. We men that are walking with God, we know that this isn't just a free pass to get the little woman to wait on us whenever we want to, even though, I have to admit, that is a lot of fun. It's not supposed to be like that. As a matter of fact, in our home we have a kind of cool thing. We don't know, Lois is nice to me, but she doesn't like to wait on me hand or foot. We don't really have it that way. I wait on her more. But what's fun is, not a bunch, I'm just kidding, but what's really fun, you love these parts of my messages, don't you? I can tell you're like, yeah, he's going to get himself in trouble. But what's really fun is when we have guests over and then Lois will come over to the guest and she'll say, can I get you something to drink? And then the guest will say, yes, I'd like some coffee, I'd like some tea. And then I always like to go, yes, I'd like some coffee please, a bit of cream, that'd be fine, thank you. And then she's like, mmm, she looks at me like, because I, anyway, that's just me and probably not good. But we model the love of Christ in our home and we respect the order of Christ in our home. Karen Andreola has written some beautiful stuff for moms. And in it, she wrote this, and I love this one, I read it, a beautiful book that she has. She said, our children will pick up on many ideas from the atmosphere that we create in our home. What we do need to ensure that this atmosphere inspires them onto the kinds of things we want them to learn first, someone loving needs to be home to make it a home. We're living in a career-minded materialistic culture that depreciates the role of the mother and the homemaker, but the fact is that a mother is the irreplaceable foundation of a home. I talk to a lot of women that say, I'd love to be just full-time at home making, I can't, and the Lord knows that. And that might be something that you ask the Lord to allow you to do, if He allows you to do that. But you know, there is the woman whose heart is, her main business is her home, and she knows that, and that's the biblical pattern. She may do all kinds of other things. She may be called upon by God to do other things. It may even grieve her to have to go and do other things. But her heart is for her home and for her children. And God knows, ladies, God knows your heart, if that's your desire. And I just want to say just something to those of you, there are a few of you, some of you, when you're in this position where you can be a homemaker and you really don't have to do a lot of outside stuff, then make sure that you are really grateful to God that you're able to do that and that you take advantage of that while you can. Five, and I'll just kind of cover the rest and quit because I don't want to keep you too long tonight. It's Mother's Day after all. Five, heed the cautions of Christ in your home. This is an admonition about the things that Jesus warns us about and the apostles warn us about and the Bible warns us about. And we'll come back and we'll hit this later on nice and hard because we need to. And that is all the Bible has to say about the world. And we've changed the wording and everything. We don't talk about worldliness anymore. But the Bible does talk about worldliness. It's still a problem. And I would just say this, heed the warnings of Christ. I had a family in a church years ago. I'll never forget. Young family. And they were just kind of around the edges. And some of the people in the church didn't act Christian around them. And they were vulnerable and they kind of drifted away. And I couldn't get them back. I would go and visit them. I would go call on them. They had these two little girls, these adorable little girls. And I so wanted to be their pastor. And I so wanted to have that young couple in our church. And I so wanted to influence them for the Lord. But they had been kind of grieved away by unchristlike attitudes among people that were in the church. And so I couldn't get them to come. And I'd visit with them. And the guy's name was Steve. I would say to him, Steve, you know, even if your wife doesn't want to serve the Lord right now, you serve the Lord and you love your wife and you just show her that you're going to be a better husband for serving the Lord and you be a good dad to your kids. And if he was in a bad mood, I would say to her, Carol, you just be a godly wife. And trust me that the Bible teaches this. Well, they just wouldn't do it. And then I heard about tragedy. They came to their home. And I went to their home. I hated making this call because there had been this bitter separation and a bitter divorce and difficulty. It was killing me to think about. They were in our church. And if they hadn't been grieved away, what would happen if they would have stayed and listened to the things of God? And they were tender to one another. Their family, those beautiful little girls would have a mom and dad together. It just killed me to think about it. And I went to call their home one night. And I knocked on the door and Steve came to the door. Oh, he said, Pastor, come on in. I was just getting ready to put the girls in bed. So I walk in the door and I stand there. Steve goes, this is my guy to get somebody to leave the room. And the girls look at me and they go, Pastor's here. And he just darted out of the room. They just took off. And I was like, okay, what was that about? And a couple minutes later, they came back with their Bibles. And they laid down on the floor. And they opened their little Bibles up on the floor. Like, well, the pastor's here. I'm sure he's going to preach, you know. I just thought, oh, those little girls are so hungry. They're so open. They're so willing. If mom and dad would only seek God, those little girls would live for God. They would love God. They would know God. And finally, anticipate the return of Christ in your home. Anticipate his return. The Scriptures say, hold fast to the end. The end of all things is at hand. Be serious and watchful, 1 Peter 4, 7. And throughout the Scriptures, there is this admonition. So what is the spirit of your home? And what do you desire the spirit of your home to be? What do you desire the spirit of your home to be? It's possible that tonight we need to do a little repenting. And asking God, oh, God, I'm sorry that I grieved you. I'm sorry that I grieved you with my anger. I'm sorry that I grieved you with my selfishness. I'm sorry. I repent, Lord, that I have grieved you with the things I've allowed on my television or things that I've allowed my family to listen to. I repent. I don't want to grieve away your spirit from my home. Please come back and fill our lives and fill our home so that if there's only one house on the block like this, that your house will be a house that's filled with the things of God. Charles Purchase said, when the home is ruled according to God's word, angels could be asked to stay with us and they would not find themselves out of their element. When the home is ruled according to God's word, angels could be asked to stay with us and they would not find themselves out of their element. Pray with me. Heavenly Father, tonight I pray that you'd help us to have these kinds of homes. I know I'm talking to people here tonight. Probably almost all of them would love to have the kind of home that I'm describing. And Lord, we have various different circumstances. In some cases, it's a woman who's the only Christian in the home. I pray, Lord, that she would be able to manifest your presence in her home and bless even her unbelieving husband or unbelieving children, as I know you so powerfully do. I pray for the man who's here tonight, Lord, who's just been leaving the religion to the little woman and he's interested in other things. God, break his heart, I pray, before it's too late. Pray, Lord, for the young people that are here, that they would quickly, just eagerly, completely devote themselves to you, that they would be filled with your Holy Spirit and that this fullness of the Holy Spirit would begin to spill out into others, that there would be, Lord, a revival among the men of the church, a revival among the ladies of the church, a revival among the young people of the church. And as we go our way tonight, I pray your blessing on these who come. I pray especially a blessing on the women and the mothers that are here tonight. I pray, Lord, tonight for the little ones that we thanked you for and that we recognized earlier tonight that each one of them would have upon their lives a very, very special blessing and favor of the Lord. Thank you for your word, Lord, tonight. Grateful to you that you've given us principles in your word that we can apply to our lives. And I pray that you would give us grace to do that. In Jesus' name, amen. Good night.