In this sermon, the speaker discusses the fear and anxiety that can arise when Christians feel the pressure to share their faith with others. He emphasizes the importance of serving others and approaching conversations with a genuine and normal demeanor. The speaker uses a metaphor of enemy soldiers and a battle to illustrate the struggle of witnessing to others. He also encourages pastors to spend ample time studying and understanding the text they are preaching, allowing it to transform their own lives before sharing it with others.

Okay, I think we're ready to get started. I'm going to have one microphone. We'll be repeating your question. Please think of your question and make a choice. ... ... ... Father Paul, would you teach us to pray? Yeah, yeah. Just to answer that question, just succinctly, one of the things that we have done, again, Baptist theology. The question was, will you teach us to pray? Right. Baptist theology has quite often been reactionary, in that we see something wrong committed with some other either denomination or group that identifies itself with Christianity. And then we run the other way so far in order to eliminate any identification with that group. One of the things has been Matthew 6 and the Lord's teaching on prayer. He was asked specifically, Lord teach us to pray. Now, in Luke 11, he answers with what has been commonly known, the Lord's Prayer, I prefer the model prayer, Matthew chapter six, starting with verse nine. It comes out a lot more clearly. But if you want to learn to pray, then just do what he said. Pray then in this way, our father who art in heaven. Now, what is he trying to teach us? Is he giving a specific thing on use these words? Well, we're warned about giving too much attention to certain words, but what he's giving us here is the perfect psychology, our attitude of prayer. Our father, we come to him as a father, he is our father, he will never, ever come to us again in the sense of a punitive judge, but always as a loving father. He is our father. We have access in the beloved. You just go throughout all the epistles trying to even understand what it means to call God our father. So there's this great openness and familiarity that we can have. But at the same time, your father happens to be in heaven. And so we hold this tension of I have this access to God, I am his son, he is my father. It's almost like here is again, Isaiah chapter six, of course, that's the son John tells us in John chapter 12, but it's God upon this row on this throne and the angels surrounding him, these gigantic, mesmerizing creatures that if we saw one would probably turn our planet to dust. And yet they can't look upon him. And yet we, as his children, can run across that forbidden space and go play among the foals of his robe. He is our father, but our father is in heaven. He's the God of glory, the Lord of the universe, the God of gods and the Lord of lords and the king of kings. And so we hold this this sense of the the fatherhood of God with the sense of the holiness and the lordship of this father of ours. And we can only study scripture to begin to grow in balancing and understanding both these tensions. And then he says, how would be thy name sanctified be thy name? Let thy name be separate from every other name. Now, he gives us three petitions, how would be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Something that we need to understand, they are three petitions, but in reality, in another sense, they are one great petition. I call this the kingdom petitions. You see, here's the problem with why prayer isn't answered. Seek ye first the kingdom before you can even think about prayer. You have to have a right view of God's will. And of the supremacy of his will and that everything is all about God, so I pray in this way, my own life. All right. Both my hips have been replaced, my wrists have been broken several times. I got more metal in me than a Tonka truck and my body hurts all the time. When you have an MRI and the doctor personally calls you at your house, you know you're in trouble. So I come before God and I say, God, heal me. If. Through healing my body, your name will be sanctified, your kingdom will come and your will will be done in a greater way than heal my body. But if your will will be accomplished and your name will be sanctified in a greater way by crushing me into gravel, then so do it. You see, that's a problem. We're praying about our will and hoping he'll accept it. The whole thing comes down to a pastor has a need. He needs a new car. Lord, if you can get glory for yourself, advance your kingdom more and promote godliness in me through giving me a car, give me a car. If not, let me walk. So it's a whole new way of looking at prayer. It's all about, first of all, his name being considered special, unique, holy among all. That's your greatest thing. Now let's go to our common church prayer meetings. They have absolutely nothing to do with that. Prayer meetings in a Baptist church are usually a town meeting with five minutes of prayer at the end, a town gossip session. So and so just got lost their job. So and so just got a bum knee. They're in the hospital. I remember going to a revival. I don't know where it was a revival. That's what they called it. And I was preaching and it was the Sunday morning and they called me in there, said, Brother Paul, all the leaders want to have a special time of prayer, all the elders. So it's wonderful. So we get in there and I mean, one elder said so and so just had some sort of extremely advanced surgery and he went into about 15 minutes or no, about five minutes of exactly what that surgery was. So when I said, well, you know, are you sure they should have done that with that surgery? And then someone else started mentions of we sat in there for 25 minutes. It was like a board meeting at a medical convention. We're trying to pray all the saints out of heaven instead of praying sinners into heaven. We have prayer meetings and what are they about? Are they people falling on their faces and saying, God, your will be done in this community, your kingdom be advanced in this community? No, we're praying about people's bad knees. It's not that we shouldn't pray for that, but is that to consume our prayer meetings? Just the individual needs of ours that are not life and death situations that have nothing to do with the advancement necessarily of godliness or the kingdom. Our focus in prayer has to be not that I have this need, God, will you answer it, but it has to be God, I'm all about your glory. But if you can advance this glory through meeting of this need, then please do it. If not, then let me lay here bare. So it's all about him. Also, John Piper says this, and it's very, very good that prayer is nothing more than a wartime walkie talkie. Prayer is not for a person who is not in the battle of advancing the kingdom, because prayer is all about advancing the kingdom. It's not about getting our needs met or advancing our own needs, it's about advancing the kingdom. So prayer functions when you're a person who's given his life, whatever that is, whether it's as a preacher, a missionary, a factory worker, a carpenter, a homemaker, whatever you've given your life to follow suit with what God's called you to do to advance your kingdom, his kingdom. And while you're working to advance his kingdom, you're praying. For all things to fall in place in your own personal life and everywhere else, in accordance with whatever will advance that kingdom of God. So that just real shortly, a little bit on prayer. Another question. Yes. When you were earlier, you referred to being quiet before God, you go into more detail about specifically what you mean. Yeah, this is what gets me kicked out of all the respectable conferences. I believe in the supernatural. Oh, the question is, what do you can you explain a little bit more about? About being alone with God and being in prayer with God and communion with God. Well, first of all, let me. Iterate. Everything that we do and believe must conform to scripture. We must have sound doctrine, correct theology, we must be aware of deceiving spirits, we must be aware of the deception of our own flesh, the vanity of our own mind could go on for hours. But I believe. That God can visit his people. In prayer, I believe that the presence of God is so real that God could show up right now in this room and I would not be saying God's here because he promised to be here in the New Testament. I can say God's here because I know he's here. I believe that God in seeking God, he can reveal his presence to the man seeking him to such in such a degree that that man can throw himself to the ground and cover his head thinking that God's come to kill him. And yet that same God can raise him up and fill him with such unspeakable joy that he doesn't even know if he can contain himself. I believe that we ought to seek God. We ought to seek the fullness of everything God has for us and we ought to seek to know him, experience him. You know, these are words again, that are going to get me, oh they already I mean, people know Paul Washer's sort of reformed, but he's kind of dangerous because all this stuff can get spooky. Look, folks, the only place where things can't get out of hand is a cemetery. And that's what a lot of reformed churches are. They're very proper cemeteries. And where there's life and there's people being born again and God is doing things and oftentimes people are misunderstanding it, you are going to see things that aren't too respectable at times. You're going to see people that have to be guided a bit. Every revival, we're all praying for revival. If it came, it'd scare us half to death. When revival breaks out, folks, things start happening that oftentimes we can't explain. What was that one fellow prayed for years and years for revival? He's sitting in his church office and notice a commotion out in the auditorium or something like that and was going out to stop it. He was madder than a hornet when he went out to stop it. Someone grabbed him and said, don't touch the ark of God. This is what you've been praying for all your life. He didn't realize what he was praying for. God can come into that prayer closet in such a way that you have no way to defend yourself. That you think some riff has opened up in heaven. And you don't know if you want to stay where you are or go back. God can come through a place, He can sweep in and take the mightiest of sinners and cast them to the ground. And no, I didn't get that out of books, I've seen it with my own eyes. He sweeped through a place and said 350 people straight to their knees in a foot of mud in a downpour in Asia under the wrath of God. And the thing is though, when that happens, then we're no longer proper and we're no longer intellectual. And we're no longer able to defend ourselves among the elite. And yes, things happen that are unexplainable. And yes, at the same time, things happen that young Christians misinterpret and act like a fool. But the fact is, if you want a really beautiful place, create a cemetery. And we need to be more to seeking God's power. I mean, look at these, even John Gill, I mean everyone called him a hyper-Calvinist and everything. But read the things he just said about the day of Pentecost. Well, this can get out of hand. Yeah, so can my three-month-old and my three-year-old and my six-year-old. But that doesn't mean everybody ought to be neutered so nothing gets out of hand. There is a seeking after God. There is a seeking after God and there is a coming of God. The old men talked about it and weren't afraid. We shouldn't be. I would say, when I was 22 years old, I'd go out street preaching on 6th Street in Austin, Texas. I was scared half out of my wits. I'd walk around a lot of times the whole night with my Bible and not be able to share with anybody or preach like a coward and go home. I got so mad, I finally walked one day, I was staying at this missionary's house, he let us have for the summer, me and a bunch of other students, guys, all trying to walk with God. And I just decided, it was right after I moved out there, I decided that either this whole thing is a hoax, now I knew it wasn't, but I said, where is the power, where is the life? What did those apostles do? Did they just have like some kind of get together in a football locker room and psych each other up and then had this power to stand against men when before they couldn't even stand against a little girl? And so here's what I did, I decided I was going to go in the closet and I was going to pray there until either God killed me or empowered me for ministry. And what I did is I fell asleep 15 minutes after I started praying and all my roommates came home later and found me in the closet asleep and thought I'd totally lost my mind. And so I got an alarm clock and I put it in there. And I prayed for about 10-15 minutes, that's how spiritual I was, and I'd fall asleep and the alarm clock would go off. I'd set it again for about another 15-20 minutes, I'd pray, fall asleep and go off. And it went on for months. And hours and nights I'd just cry out to God, God I don't care about anything, I don't care, I'm not asking you to save people in China, I just want to know you, that's all. I don't want to be like I was, I don't want to be like I am, there's no power, there's no life, I don't know what I want, I'm just going to sit here until I even know what I want. And then there was a retreat to go on, a ski retreat to Colorado, and I thought well that would be good. And I felt like the Lord was just, if I went I'd be in disobedience. So I went out west of Austin, I climbed up on a hill, out there in the middle of some ranch, got permission. And I went crazy for three days. I would grab rocks and throw them up at the sky. And beg God to come down, something, nothing happened. I went home, went on for a couple more months, I almost got to the point where I was crazy. And one night I cried out to God, I don't know how long, and God came. And I thought I was going to die. And I laid on my face, I don't know how long, I covered my head, I curled up in a fetal position, and I just laid there. And then all of a sudden, a joy that I had never known in my life. And my mouth shot open, everyone gets really scared here, they think I'm going to say I've spoken tongues. Well I didn't. But it was like everything I'd ever read in the book of Psalms came pouring out of my mouth. After that, did I struggle with sin? Yep. After that, did I struggle with fear? Yep. After that, did I have all the common problems, sanctification? Yep. But did my life change? Yep. I started going out there and preaching. God was real. He's more real to me than all you sitting in this room right now. Now I know talking like this just looks all arrogant and proud and everything, but folks, sooner or later, someone's got to stand up and say they really know God. I'm sorry, I'm not going to, if I didn't tell you this, I'd be a liar. No, I'm not basing my life on experience. I follow the London Confession. Read Charles Spurgeon. People always say, you know, the Armenians, they just selectively read Charles Spurgeon. They don't read all the stuff about him. Well, the Calvinists don't either. Because some very, very strange things happen to Charles Spurgeon. God is real. Am I saying that someone has to do the exact same thing? Absolutely not. But am I saying that we ought to seek God and expect God to show up? Yes. May it take a half a year? Yes. Can I pray like that now, like I prayed like that? No. I honestly believe it was a sovereign act of God pushing me to prayer hours and hours and hours a day. Because I can't do that now. I can't repeat it. But, and I'm not, folks, I don't know, I hate sharing that. I very rarely shared what I just shared here. But, young guys, listen to me. This is more than correct exegesis. It's more than just, you've memorized Boyce's Abstract of Principles. I mean, you need to do that, praise the Lord. But, goodness gracious, these guys were men of God. And also, at the same time, it manifests itself differently through the way God has made us. Not everyone's called to be a preacher. But everyone is called to seek God. You know, it's amazing, I remember at seminary, all the Korean students. And I befriended one of them and I said, you know, why don't the Korean students, why don't you hang around with anybody? And they never would answer me. And finally I asked one of them, I said, come on, I pushed him in a corner. He says, alright, if you want to know, we don't hang around with you Americans because we don't want to be carnal like you. I mean, this isn't necessarily, but, I mean, sometimes in some of those churches they have to fast 40 days to be a deacon. I'm not saying that that's what we should be doing, but I'm saying, folks, there's a whole bunch of Christianity out there that isn't American instantaneous Christianity. It has to do with knowing God. Fasting is another thing. When do you fast, people ask me. When do you fast? Well, let me tell you something about fasting. This maybe will help you because this really helped me. Because I got into the thing of I need to fast so many days or I need to fast weeks or I need to do this and I need to reach... This is what I discovered. Most of what I did was wrong. It just turned out to be a gruesome endurance test. But here's what I've discovered. Alright, I don't get to do it anymore because I don't have time. I just don't have time. Let's say that for four years I've been planning on going on an elk hunt. That's all I've thought about. Planning the elk hunt, getting the right bow, practicing, just thinking about the elk hunt. Man, it's just my passion. And then right the day I'm leaving, I got the truck all loaded up, everything's in there. Man, I'm going once in a lifetime. I've waited for this. Man, it's all I can think about. I get ready to get in my car and my little six-year-old Ian, he goes, my head, my head, and he falls to the ground. At that moment, do you honestly think I'm going to go, dang, I've been waiting four years to go on this elk hunt and now this has to happen. Do you honestly think that's what's going to happen if I'm a decent man? You know what's going to happen? I'll tell you what's going to happen. That elk hunt has totally disappeared from my mind. It doesn't even exist. And if someone were to say, you really need to go on that elk hunt, I would think that that was the most atrocious thing someone could ever suggest. One passion has been totally replaced by another. And for me, that's what fasting is. When there's a person who I feel like is in spiritual problems or there's a sin in my own life I can't seem to get victory in or there's something that needs to happen on the mission field that I feel like there's an obstacle to there or there's something going on, and it begins. It's not about, I ought to fast because then maybe God will do something. But it's about, don't even mention to me food until this thing is resolved. Do you see? It's not a quiet time. Let me just share with you something. I hate quiet times. Because quiet times to me are like putting my wife in a closet 24 hours a day and pulling her out at 7 o'clock in the morning to meet with her for 20 minutes. And then putting her back in the closet and say, check that off, I did my quiet time. I think we ought to have times with God and we ought to read the Word, and it's good to have times that are specific. But don't reduce your Christian life to a quiet time. Don't reduce your communion with God down to something you can check off. You had your quiet time, so everything is fine. Okay. Next question. In light of what we talked about this morning, what should our evangelism look like? That's a very good question. First of all, you're speaking about... Oh, the question is, what should our evangelism look like in light of what we learned this morning about true conversion? First of all, when you're dealing with people, you must be there not only for the glory of God, which should be primarily, but your concern and honest love for people. In that, you ought to recognize that you are a servant. You are a servant. Not only to God, but to those people. The graces of the Christian life ought to shine forth in your life. That means... I'll just give you some examples. You know, before I was a Christian, I wasn't afraid really to talk to people. You know, I'd walk in. Someone's sitting on a bench there at school. I'd sit down. Hey, how's it going? Alright. May I see the ballgame last night? Just a normal guy. Then I became a Christian. And it's like I totally freaked out. You see a guy on a bench. Normal guy. Before you were a Christian and knew you needed to witness to somebody. You see him on a bench. You sit down. Hey, what's up? Start talking, right? But now you're a Christian. You look at him. And you start sweating. And your eyes get big. He looks up at you. And you look like the children of the corn coming at him. I mean, it's just like, oh my gosh. There's one of those events. Run! So, here's one of the things that I realize is I'm called to serve that person. So, I'm probably going to sit down. Just normal. Hey, how's it going? Oh, pretty good. Just start talking to him. Asking him questions. Just a normal conversation. You know, normal is a really good word. Just normal. About anything. Get to know him. Stuff like that. Now, I've got to make some determinations here also. First of all, you should always be praying according to Colossians chapter 4 that God would open up a door. Always. That is a dangerous prayer. Because you ask Him, He'll open them. Alright, so you're praying God open up a door. And trust in His sovereignty. That means you're not going to knock the door down in this guy's life. Okay? Now, you're not going to be a coward, but you're not going to knock down the door. So, you start talking to him. And I ask myself this. I'm on a plane, okay? That's different than... Alright, I'm not going to build a long-term relationship with this person. I'm not. But if you're in a school or something, that could be different. You build a long-term relationship. While you're talking to him the first time, you might pray God open up a door. Maybe God will, and that'd be great. Maybe He won't. But you're sitting there going, long-term. Long-term relationship. With this guy over here, I'm going to be talking to him. I'm going to kind of do what one of the navigator's guys said one time that I thought was really good. He says, I work my way around the rim of someone's life and I look for a crack. That's pretty good. But, I'm not going to be sneaky. Because they can tell when you've snuck in something on them. They really can. So, I'm going to talk to them. If a door opens up, I'm going to go through it. If it doesn't open up, I'm liable to do something like this. You know, we're on this plane trip. It's really been a good conversation with you. Because I know, look, the door's not opening up. Look, I'm a Christian. And I know that probably brings a lot of things into your mind with all these TV evangelists and everything that are out there. But, would you mind if just for a few minutes, I shared the Gospel with you? Now, look what I'm doing. I'm not trying to be sneaky. I'm not trying to sneak in a way to kind of open up the door. I'm just being honest. Would you mind? And I find that people, even when they don't really like this, they respect that a lot more than me trying to sneak one in on them. You know, find a sneaky way to enter in. So, I just sit down. Can I share with you the Gospel? I like what John MacArthur does, from what I understand. I've never heard him say this, but another guy shared it with me. He said that Dr. MacArthur will just say to people, Have you ever really understood the Gospel? Matter of fact, I did that to a Vietnamese guy on the flight over here. I said, Have you ever really understood the Gospel? And he said, No. And I said, Well, let me explain it to you. One time, I was coming back from Amsterdam. And I got on a plane and sat down beside this guy. Looked like kind of a pretty distinguished guy, you know. And I sat down beside him. He goes, What do you do? And I said, Well, I teach the Bible. I preach and things like that. And I quoted a few things. And since we were there in that area, I said, You know, like Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch Reformed guy said, He goes, You know, I'm Dutch Reformed. And I said, Really? And he goes, Yeah. And he goes, But I don't know what that means. And he said, He was an aide to George Bush Sr. at the time. And this is what he said to me. Our plane had just taken off. He said, I tell you what. He goes, We had about six hours before we hit Washington. He goes, Could you explain to me just the history of Christianity and what all this is about? I said, Well, I would be happy to. So sometimes, you know, that happens. But that's one of the best ways. It's just to say, Can I share the gospel with you? And if they say no, go, Okay. And then be nice to them. But if they say yes, then I always begin with this. I find the best place to begin is not with man, but with God. And I will say to them, First of all, the gospel is the good news. That's what the word means. But let me lay the whole scenario out for you. The gospel begins this whole thing about Christ and sin and the cross. It begins with the nature of God. Here is the great problem in all the scripture. If you ever want to know what the scripture is about, it's about this one problem. If God is a just God, He can't forgive you. And people say, Well, I don't see why. I mean, why is that such? I said, Think about it. Then I'll use illustrations from our own courts of law. We are always complaining about corrupt judges. They let criminals go. They forgive them. They do all this stuff when they're supposed to do justice. And I get them to see that they need God to be just. They want God to be just. See, when you mention holiness and everything else, unbelievers mind with the devil working. He's always thinking, Oh, yeah, he's going to show me this God who just wants to cramp my lifestyle and force me into all this stuff. And I go, Look, you want a holy, righteous God. Now, why would I want that? Well, would you want someone with all power to be like Hitler? Well, no. Wouldn't you want him to be righteous? Would you like him to act against the evils in this world? They're going, Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's what we need. Well, now here's the next thing. Your evil in this world. Let's talk about it. And then began to deal with that and then put before them. Here is the problem. God is just and good and loving. You're none of those things. Now, how can God forgive you and still be just? And then I'm going to give them something that even Martin Lloyd Jones said, I can't explain it. It's just in Scripture. But God chose to put away this problem through becoming a man and dying upon tree. And I go through that. And then I explain resurrection and I explain that, sir, you must repent and believe. Sometimes at that point, a lot of times it just goes off from there and they go, OK, I gave you your five minutes. Thank you. Sometimes it goes into, you know, the whole plane trip or people telling me, I'd like to talk more with you about this. So that's the way I always go. Begin with the nature of God and his justice. And the problem of justice and man's evil. Work very hard. Don't move from this witnessing thing until they've accepted, they've begun to realize their wickedness. Or at least it's been clearly explained. Go on to the cross and then what they must do. Now, there have been times when even on a plane. I mean, I was with a guy on a plane a couple years ago and he said, I said, you really need to think about these things. And he said, no, I don't. I need to get saved. And I said, he said, how do I get? I said, you know, I mean, he was he was broken over his sin. I said, call on the Lord, ask him to save you. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I read through his prophecy. Man, he cried out to God right on the plane. Tears coming down his face, everything, you know, and he said, God saved me. And now this is extremely important. I said, sir, if you have believed in Jesus Christ with all your heart, he has saved you. But now. Then I take him through the book of First John and say, if he has truly saved you, this is going to begin to happen in your life. But as you go out from this plane and everything else, if none of these changes become apparent in your life, then you've got nothing here today. Because I don't want that guy being addressed by maybe some godly preacher five years from now. He's living in sin. And that preacher comes up to him, tries to witness to him. And he says, look, don't worry about me. You know, I was on a plane with Brother Paul and I'm saved. I don't want that happening. So that's kind of. OK, next question. Because we have kept losing. He's saying it's hard to convince me and a lot of people that we're evil. I mean, it's not a man's job, I guess. But how do you. I grew up in a background where the worth or worth is just made too much of. Right. Right. Instead of his worth, not that his isn't made. But how do you convince yourself and other people that we need, that we are actually evil? Well, let's just look at all this. I mean, let's just. The question is, how do we convince some people that they're really evil? I mean, how can we prove all this? Well, just look at this. The whole idea of the gospel is absolutely preposterous. I mean, it's preposterous. Think about it for a moment. It's like me coming to you saying I found the Messiah. He's a penguin in Antarctica. I'm serious. Just think about how preposterous this message is. And that's Paul's whole point. He he goes in. He goes in to this arena with all these Greek philosophers. He goes and says. I'm a Jew. All right, they've already get out of here. And I know the one true God. Yeah, right. You're a conquered, wasted people on a little track of land. And not only that, he has come to reconcile us through his son. Really? The logos. Really? Yeah. He was a carpenter in Nazareth. I mean, think about this. It's the message. Unbelievable. No one's going to believe this ever. You want to know that one of the greatest proofs of Christianity is that it survived the first century. That anybody would believe. Why are we sitting here today believing this willing to die? And John Calvin did it better than anybody. Calvin is so terrible because John Calvin is known for Calvinism. What you've got to understand is he said some of the most important statements he ever made weren't in addressing that. I think probably the most important statement Calvin ever made was with regard to how men believe any of this. I mean, you have all these apologists out there giving you 37 reasons why you ought to believe the word of God's inspired. I had Agua Duna Indians in Condor, Kanki that can't give you one reason why they believe the Bible's inspired, but they'll die burned at the stake before they will deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why do you believe? Is it because, you know, 47 historical reasons for the deity of Christ? No, you believe because when the gospel was preached, God regenerated your heart. The Spirit of God bore witness that it was true. That's how you know. Okay? So what should we do? We do what Spurgeon says. You don't need to defend the word of God any more than you need to defend a lion. Let him out of the cage. He'll defend himself. And that's the way. How is someone going to believe that they're a sinner? There's only one way. The Holy Spirit working through the proclamation of the word. So you sit down there and you begin to just share with him what Scripture says. One of the things a guy who's taught me a lot whenever I get in a debate with regard to someone who's attacking Calvinism, he says, Paul, beware. Do not use your mind to try to battle anybody philosophically. When you get into that battle, just go to the text. Don't philosophically battle because then you're trying to defend God and he's judging him. Just go to the text and look at what God said. It's the same way. You take the text. Apologetics. I believe that Van Teel was closer to anybody. Presuppositional apologetics. He was closer to anybody on this. Guys who try to prove God by all these evidences have to be very careful. Because first of all, look at this. Apologists believe. I don't know how we got off on this, but let's continue for a minute. Apologists are like, if I can just get this guy to believe there is a God. Whoopee. You've done nothing. You have not created any common ground with this person by getting him to believe there is a God. Scripture doesn't tell you to do that in the first place. Scripture. I hear preachers say, the Bible says that God has given evidence in Romans chapter one that there is a God. That is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible does not teach that God has given evidence so that men will know there is a God. The Bible says that all men know there is a God and they know enough about the one true God to know they hate him and they know enough about the will of the one true God to despise it. So I don't deal with atheists or unbelievers ever. I deal with rebels. I don't deal with intellectual problems. I deal with moral ones. If I get up on a stage and here's an atheist here and I'm here, let's say, let's make this a debate and he's an atheist, I go, objection, I can't debate this guy. Why? He's immoral and you can't have a debate with an immoral man. What do you mean I'm immoral? You're a liar. Why do you call me a liar? You're not an atheist. The Bible does not recognize your atheism. It doesn't. Don't give men the benefit of the doubt. They say, I'm an atheist. I go, no, you're not. You know there's a God. And what you're doing is you're according to Romans 1.18, you're doing everything in your power, in your evil and in your ungodliness to suppress every truth you know about him. And the reason why you're doing it is because you do not want to submit to him. You see, on apologetics, let's prove Jesus is deity. Like the Word of God. How do you know the Bible is the Word of God? Instead of wrangling with someone, this is what I do. I tell you what, have you ever read this thing? Have you ever read it? No? Let's sit down and read it. Let's just read it. How do I know it's the Word of God? Because I've read it. And if he starts reading that thing, and the Spirit of God begins to work, he's going to know it's the Word of God. And if the Spirit of God doesn't begin to work in him, there isn't anything I can say to him. Using apologetics to prove that Jesus is the Son of God is like Charles Leiter says, it's like trying to point out the sun with a flashlight. It's just absolutely no need. Show him who he is! Just proclaim him! Proclaim what Scripture says about itself, and the Holy Spirit will honor that. Proclaim what Scripture says about Christ, and the Holy Spirit will work. That's all you have to do. I love what Dr. Moore was preaching at our church a while back, and he said something that was so wonderful from Southern Seminary. He was talking about witnessing. And we're just always like, when someone, a lot of times people say, Brother Paul, you know, I've witnessed to my uncle like 438 times, and he just won't, you know, could you just tell me something that I could tell him, you know, that would... And Dr. Moore says, look, let's say you've witnessed to a guy 25 times, and he's never been converted, he doesn't care. You've told him Jesus died, Jesus rose again from the dead, and Jesus can save him, and he doesn't care. But one day you show up and you say, Jesus died, Jesus rose again from the dead, and was seen by 500 witnesses, and he can save you. And the guy goes, what? What did you say? 500 witnesses? If you had told me that at the beginning, I would have believed. No, they're not going to believe because you give them one more piece of really intriguing evidence. Just keep preaching the same gospel to them over and over and over and over. Kind of like Noah. Noah, what's the daily devotional? It's going to rain. Noah, you've been doing that for 300 days. Tomorrow give us something to eat. Show up for breakfast with the dad and the family devotion. Dad, what's... It's going to rain. That's the same way we ought to be. You know, Spurgeon, I really love... Sometimes guys will go in, I hear guys teach on expository preaching, and man, if you don't do this and this and this and go this way and everything, you're not a preacher of the truth. The one thing you can do to ruin everybody's day is to stand up and go, Sir, according to this, Charles Spurgeon was not a good preacher. Charles Spurgeon, it didn't matter what text he took, he went straight for the cross every time. I think he was the greatest preacher who ever lived. But if you want to know something, young men, most of the greatest preachers who ever lived did not follow many of the so-called standard expositional things that are so hollowed today. No, they preached the truth, but they didn't do what a lot of people are saying you must do today to be really teaching the Bible. So just give them the Word. Give them the Word. Give them the Word. Stand on that. Robert Raymond, a new systematic of the Christian faith. I don't go for all of his Reformed stuff, but you do his first couple of hundred pages, and it's about epistemology and the knowledge of God and how do we know what we know. It's absolutely excellent. And if you really like that, then you can go on the web because it's out of print. There's a book called The Justification of Knowledge by Robert Raymond. It also deals with epistemology. It takes Vantelian logic and reduces it down. That's a great thing to have. And if you can't find it, then call me and I'll make you a copy. Another question? How did God lead you through? Man. Well, in the year the King Uzziah died... No, what I did was I've always been just a Midwestern Illinois farm boy. And I got saved at the University of Texas, never been out of the country or anything. And my uncle loved missions and he was kind of a global traveler. He was an unusual fellow. And he had this friend that was in Peru that was a missionary, Homer Crane, from the hills of Kentucky. And he was going to go down and visit him. And he said, Paul, why don't you come with me? And I was excited. Because I never thought about being a missionary. I just thought God had called me to preach in the States. But I went with him. And when I walked out there in Lima, a city of millions and millions of people without the Gospel, some good missionaries there, but it's like a tiny dropper trying to put out a forest fire. It just broke my heart. I remember crying all night. I'd never seen anything like that. I'd never been out of the country or anything. Then I came back and I went with the church planting thing for a little while during a break at seminary. I went to the Philippines and God really blessed that. I started thinking about missions. And what I did my last year at seminary is I had this long list of all the places where I thought God might want me to go and place to the unknown thing. I also had something there. And I prayed. I took Peru off the list after about six weeks of praying. And then after two weeks more, I think I put it back on. I'd just pray. Sometimes I'd just separate time fast and just pray over, God, where do You want me to go? What do You want me to do? I thought I might stay and work at the inner city mission. I might go to Peru. I didn't know if God wanted me to go back to the Philippines. Whatever. Then one day, between the second and third floor on the stairwell of the library there at Southwestern, I was walking up it just kind of thinking about it. And it was just like, bam. I walked up. I got to the top. A friend of mine goes, what's wrong with you? I said, God just told me to go to Peru. So I went to Peru. And I went through a local Southern Baptist church where my mom attended and I attended when I was back in Illinois. And I went through that, just a local thing as a single missionary. I really thought that I was going to be a single missionary. I wanted to be. I had a desire to be single and remain that way. And then I met my wife about four years later in a sense of knowing her as a wife and got married. But you pray and you wait. I had a bunch of guys really nailing me on subjective leadership of the Holy Spirit. How do you know the Holy Spirit told you? I said, guys, just look at this for a moment. How do you know you're called to be a preacher? You know, find me the text where it says, you know, Billy Bob, you need to be a preacher in Toad Suck, Arkansas. I mean, where does it say that? It's not there. The Holy Spirit has to guide you. And a guy told me this. A guy from the Navigators years ago, and I thought it was so great, he said, Paul, I don't trust in your ability to hear God, but I do trust in God's ability to speak to you. And I think if we stay grounded in the Word, we're renewing our mind according to Romans 12. To our best of our knowledge, we're seeking first the Kingdom. He's going to lead us. Another question? Are there things to be achieved between walking with God, praying, and the practical aspects of the ministry? Because so few people have decided one or the other. And there has to be... I mean, we can say I walk with God. And around us, everybody that we know, we sit and we wait for them to break down our doors instead of going the next verse. I must go the next time and preach the Gospel. You left off right there. How do we balance that? Well, first of all, the question is how do we balance this thing between being alone with God and I'm a man of God and I cultivate a relationship with God, and then what's considered the more practical things of ministry, the carrying out of visiting people and things like that. One of the things that I really look at, first of all, a lot of our walk with God is centered around the study of Scripture. Alright, my heart is warmed when I find great things about God in Scripture, great things about the cross, just when truth is revealed. One of the things I think you need to keep your finger on is this. Is your heart constantly being warmed by great thoughts about God? Is it leading you to a desire for holiness and further consecration and devotion? That's when you know, okay, the devotional part, if we want to separate it that way, of my life is where it should be. Okay? One of the problems that men will do, now some men can do this and some men can't, but all men need to keep an eye on this. I'll hear men who never study the Bible except to prepare a sermon. And they become, I don't know, sermon factories. Now, there are other men who, and I'm not saying that you need to study for a sermon and study outside of that, but what you need to do, if you're going to preach a sermon, if you're preaching through a book, this is one of the things you need to do. Are you actually going to preach something that hasn't warmed your own heart? That hasn't been a blessing to your own heart? But isn't it true though that oftentimes we're so busy, the only thing we're hoping to do at the end of the week by the time we get up in the pulpit, is just preach something that's correct and right, and it hasn't really set in on our life very much? That happens all the time. I know it happens with me sometimes. Alright, so what I think we need to adapt is I am going to preach this text. Maybe the next text I'm preaching, I'm in Romans 6, let's say. I'm going to preach this text. But in my sermon preparation, begins with me studying this text that I might know God and be conformed to His image. And then I'm going to let that sermon be an overflow of what has been done to me. Alright, now that takes time. That takes time. It takes a mulling over, a chewing of the cud, or whatever they call it. You know, where a cow will chew something up, swallow it down, digest it a little bit, vomit it up again. Do that about four times. That's how you know Scripture. You can sit there and know that thing just pristine exegetically. You can call in some of the great scholars and have notes down there by them, but you haven't digested it. It hasn't become a reality to you. It hasn't warmed your heart. If you will do that before you turn your attention on preaching, then you're able at that moment, I hate to put it this way, but to sort of kill two birds with one stone. And I've heard of John MacArthur and others saying that's what they do. I know other men who can't do that who they also feel like they need to do something else, study something else. I believe that the pastor has the unique ability to be able to be with God more than anyone else just in sermon preparation. If he will set his sights on first the warmth of his own heart, the change of his own life, and then let his sermon be an overflow. Now, a lot of men I know, like John O'Sims that was just preaching at our church, he's the greatest slave to Scripture I've ever met. He's not the greatest preacher in the world, but I've never met a man who lashes himself down to Scripture more than John O'Sims. He's going to preach what the text says. And he told me just recently, he says, a sermon on the average takes me 30 hours. 30 hours. Now, you can get your heart warmed in that because John O doesn't spend 30 hours figuring out how to say really cool things. He spends 30 hours trying to understand the text and then when he gets up there, it's just flowing. He just can't wait to tell people what he's learned. So John O's able to do both things. And that's what I would really recommend. Here's something that you need to ask yourself. Do you pastor full time? Okay. Here's what I do when I go to churches, smaller churches or churches that are looking for a preacher or maybe they just have a preacher. I'll say, I'll come and speak for you, but put a whiteboard up in the back, you know, in the front of the church for my first sermon. And I'll go in there and go, okay, you want a preacher or maybe they've got a preacher. Go, you've got a preacher. That's great. There's a lot of churches in the world that don't have preachers. Now, how many days a week do you want your preacher to work? Well, we never thought about that. We need to think about it. We're going to think about it right now. How many days do you want your preacher to work? Do you want him to work seven days a week? Well, no. Three? No. Well, how many? Usually around five and a half. They're in there somewhere, you know. I'll go, okay. Five and a half days. How many hours a day do you want him to work? Sixteen? Da-da-da. Usually it comes down to, well, I don't know. Ten? No. Nine? Eight? Okay. Nine hours. How many hours do you want him preparing his Bible preaching? His sermons? A lot of them, they preach three sermons a week. How many hours do you want him studying? One? Two? Well, no. I mean, he's just preaching. Okay. How many hours do you want him? Can I get him three or four? Okay. That leaves us, let's see, three and a half hours. You want him working eight? We've got four and a half hours left. How much time do you want him interceding for the souls of your children? I always put it that way. Well, we never thought about that. Well, you need to think about it. You want him 15 minutes? For the whole lot of you? We never thought about that. Yeah, I know. That's why you're running this man ragged. He has no time to study. Some of them say, well, I don't know, an hour and a half? Okay, great. How much time do you want him growing in things like biblical counseling and all the other things that have to be dealt with, administration and things like that? Well, he hardly has any time left. Yeah, I know. You better not be bothering him with things that are superficial. He's got a lot of work to do. And then start setting out biblically how a church is supposed to function. You see. One of our great problems is we're trying to fix a symptom. How can pastors find more time? The problem that we're not fixing is the cause, which is a false and biblical structure to churches. You should never walk up to an elder in our church and say, the plumbing's broken. You get rebuked. Elders don't worry about plumbing. They don't worry about lights. They don't worry about any of that. They don't worry about the grass getting cut. They worry about the spiritual condition of everyone in that flock. Deacons worry about all the material things that have to be done. Freeze the elders up to do what they're supposed to do, take care of the flock spiritually. And deacons take care of all the physical needs of the flock. And so, see, what we've done is we've gone down through here and now we've divided up the work of the pastor. And, of course, it doesn't divide up quite that easy because it is important that you visit and things like that. But even that needs to be guided with more wisdom and with help behind you, you see. Maybe someday I could come back here and we could just go through all this because this can really be helpful. I have seen more pastors set free by this little whiteboard thing I do. Because most of the mean people in the congregation are just dumbfounded when you do that. They go, I've never seen anything like that in my life. Never even thought about it. I said, yeah, that's why you're killing your pastor. So some of you who are laymen, think about what I just said when you go back to your churches. Bring this up, you know. But if you can maintain a thing where your heart is continually warmed by new truth and by visits and prayer, then it's fine. Now, my wife has given me a lot of help. She's a very wise woman. And I was lamenting a while back that I wasn't praying like I used to. And she said, you know, you're right, but you're studying more than you were. And I said, well, is that good? She's so smart. And she said, look, sit down, let me explain this to you. She said, there are times and stages in a person's life. She said, over here, she says, I recall when you just seemed like you were praying all the time. There's been other times when it seemed you were more given to you were studying and not praying as much. Then there were other times it seemed you were out there preaching more, couldn't give as much time. She goes, God's over all of this. We don't need to get in a pattern. We just need to follow Him and the basics, you see. It's like the Proverbs 31 woman. You read her, you hate her, don't you? You hate her because you don't understand her. She's not superwoman. Again, my wife helped me on this. She said, Paul, sit down. Let me just tell you what this means. The Proverbs 31 woman, that's not a day in the life of the Proverbs 31 woman. That's the life of the Proverbs 31 woman. There were years when she wasn't selling belts and garments to traders. The only thing she was doing was taking care of her children. Then when she trained her children and they were able to grow and get larger and even help, they worked with her some while she still trained them. Then there was a time when they went on and she gave herself to other things. This is not her whole life. This is not a day in her life. This is her whole life, different segments of what she did, you see. Same way in the Christian life. Do you have elders in your church? Okay. One of the things is to sit down that's very, very helpful is that you sit down with elders if they're godly. If they're godly but a little bit immature, it would be wise to bring in other pastors that are trusted by you and them and sit down and say, okay, you're the teaching, preaching guy. Say, okay, let's sit down and figure out how we can best schedule the life of the preaching, teaching minister to make sure that he is able to grow in grace, that he is able to preach as he ought, that he's able to intercede, that he's able to do the ministry and yet at the same time love and care for his children as he's been called to by God. And if it's a general consensus and you set that up automatically, because see, here's another problem you have, okay? I'm not a prophet or a son of a prophet but I've been around long enough to know a problem you probably have and it's one that I have. You decide, man, I need to study more and I need to pray more. But then when you start studying more and you get all excited about what God's showing you, there's this thing of guilt that you're just cut away over here by yourself studying for you and all these people need help and all you do is sit around and study. But when you can with your elders and maybe the help of outside ministers sit down and work through an entire schedule and ask the brothers to hold you accountable to it, then you're free. You see? You're protected. So I would do that. But one of the things that's so very, very important Do you ever hear preachers that say, I'm sacrificing my... You see, you can't... The will of God according to Romans chapter 12, verse 2 is perfect and that means that you do not have to violate... Now when I was a single missionary, I wanted to work... And so the kingdom of God is not my family over here and the ministry in the kingdom over here. We're not Catholic. We don't believe in dividing up the world in secular and sacred. Everything in your life is the kingdom. And your family is inside there. So you can be doing just as much kingdom work wrestling with your boys until your three-year-old breaks your hand. You can do that and be holy as much as fasting. You see? Another question? Okay, we have... What would you say to a woman who... Okay, we have an unbelieving husband who professes to be saved but has absolutely no fruits. Do we pick up the ball of getting the family to church and, you know, all that stuff? Or do we just drop that and let it be manifest that he is not a spiritual leader and that he is not fulfilling his role to guide and lead? I mean, if there's prayers, you know, if there's like a family altar, it's not because he said, okay, come together, you know, my children, and let's pray to God. You know, it's because I've said, okay, it's time for bed, let's pray. You know, do I just drop that and train the children in his absence? I mean, I'm not saying like forego the training of the children, period, you know, in spiritual things, but, you know, in his presence, do I just step back? Okay. Okay. The question is, if I have an unbelieving husband who believes he's a believer, but he's dropped the ball in the spiritual aspects of family and church, never picked up the ball, and so the wife's picked up the ball, should she continue doing that or should she just drop the ball and let him maybe see that he's not or just honor him by letting him do whatever he wants to do? Ask him. Ask him? Yeah. My husband or him? Your husband. Ask your husband. Let's say that, okay, your husband's not interested in spiritual issues and everything. You can drop the ball and you can do it spitefully. We all know that. Well, I'll show you. I drop the ball, nothing's going to happen around here. You're going to see your kids turn into hellions. It's all going to be your fault. That's spiteful. I'm not saying that's what you're doing. You want to avoid that, yes. All right. The other way is to just manhandle the situation. Well, you're out of the picture. You're not even in my thoughts. I'm going to do the work of a wife and a mother and a husband and a father. I'm going to do it all. And so you drudge around and you're doing this and doing all this work. The other thing is to honor him. It's to honor him. And you have to make sure your heart's right. You know, the 1 Peter 3 passage is so very important. Not with word, but with your chaste behavior, giving honor, things like that. What you need to do is walk up to him and say, Husband, I want to honor you and I want to serve you the best that I can. Now, our children, do you recognize that they ought to be in church? Do you recognize that we ought to have something of a family devotion? Would you be in agreement with that? He's probably going to say what? Yeah. Would you want to lead some of this or would you rather that I do it? And he's probably going to say, I'd rather that you do it. Then go do it. Okay, so it's not stepping out of line for... I mean, because I already know that he would... I mean, if I was to say, do you want me to be the instigator or all these things, he's going to say yes. And I don't have a problem as long as I'm not stepping out of... You know what he was saying about the castle, the little canyon door at the top of the stairs. No, because unless you're saying all this to get him spitefully, you want to get him to be walking with God. But what you want to see is you've asked his permission sincerely, not maliciously or spitefully. You've asked his permission. You've asked him. You see these as concerns. You don't come to him and say, I see these as concerns. You're dropping the ball. That would not be honoring him. You see this and say, honey, I have seen these things. Do you think that they're necessary also for our children? He says yes. And he probably will. He's probably a decent man. And then you look at him and you say, do you want to take these things? The Bible says you need to take these things. Do you want to take these things? And if he says no, would you mind in whatever limited way I can, would you mind if I tried to do a lot of these things with our kids? And if he said go ahead, then go ahead. And do it with all your heart. And do it not to spite him, not to prove to him something. Do it out of love and honor to your husband. Just do it. God will honor you. Now, let me share something with you. It's very important. It's in 1 Peter. I'm sorry. Now, chapter 1. He says, in the same way you wives be submissive to your own husbands. Now, I want you to look at this. In the same way. In the same way of what? Prior to this chapter, starting in verse 21 of chapter 2, for you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps. Now, in chapter 2, he's telling believers how they ought to suffer for Christ, not consider it something unusual, and ought to have Jesus Christ as their example in their suffering. Then he comes to first century women who had been converted probably, and their husbands not, and they're suffering. Now, you've got to realize, a lot of first century women were treated like property, cattle. It wasn't the rights that you think you have today. And so he's saying to them, okay women, for the cause of Christ, suffer in the same way. And this is how you're going to do it. Be submissive to your own husbands, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the Word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives. Now, when he throws in verse 2, as they observe your chase and respectful behavior, it's saying that the behavior of the wives isn't, okay, I'm going to do family devotions now, Dad, because you've dropped the ball. That's not what it's talking about. It's not doing all this to spite someone. We can do good things to spite people. But it's just go ahead, I'm going to honor my husband by doing what he said I should do. I'm going to do it. You haven't been called to shed blood here. You haven't been called to die on a stake. A thousand Christians died today for the cause of Christ. Okay, let's go. Suffer. Serve Him. Honor your husband. And do it as unto the Lord. You have the greatest opportunity. Most women can sit by and they'll go, my husband's just not spiritual. He just doesn't want to do anything. My family's never going to be... I'm never going to be the homeschooling queen of the year. Nothing's going to work out right. You know, all this different stuff. Or you can sit there and go, I have the opportunity at this moment to follow in the steps of everyone who has ever suffered for the cause of Christ. I have the opportunity to give more glory to God than if I had the godliest, most obedient husband on the face of the earth. Which I have recognized that it gives you the opportunity to love Him despite Christ loves us. But to gain great glory for Christ. No, as long as you've asked... No, you've asked Him. You've asked Him sincerely if He'll let you do this. And if He says yes, do it. Now, something that's very, very important. I talk about submission. I want to be very clear. Women ought to submit to their husbands. But when it comes to the point of that woman being brought into danger and all sorts of things like that, getting beat up and everything... No. I'm not saying fighting back. I'm saying get out of there. Go to your godly pastor. Get some help. But here's something that I want to talk to you about that is so very, very important. Men. My wife is supposed to submit to me. Period. That's what Scripture says. That's what it says. Now, you can do whatever you want. I don't care how much you've been influenced by feminism. That's what it says. But that's not the great burden of the passage. It's not. The great burden of the passage is mine. Do you realize something? I'm on a plane. Someone says, what do you do? I go, I'm a husband. I do that for fun. Just look at their face. They go, what? I go, I'm a husband. Well, what else do you do? I'm a father. Well, what else do you do? Well, if I have any time left over, I minister. I'm not kidding. I mean that. Let me tell you something. The most important person in my life if I'm a biblical man is my wife. Not my children. Not my buddies. Not ministry guys. Not the church. I was never called to lay down my life for the church. But like Christ laid down His life for His wife, for His wife, the church, I'm called to lay down my life for my wife. The most important person in my life must be my wife. If she's not ministered to, if she's not cared for, I have no, no right to minister in the name of Christ. I came down, I was preaching in this church out in Austin one time and I came down, my first sermon, I came down out of the pulpit and a big committee of people came up and said, you need to be our next pastor. And I looked at them and I said, are you out of your cotton-picking mind? And one of them said, why did you say that? I said, you don't know if I love my wife. How can you call me to be a pastor? You don't know if I love my wife. You don't know if any of the requirements found in 1 Timothy 3, if I fulfill any of them, I speak well, so does the devil. So you see, let me put it this way, it's a very grotesque illustration, but it's the best one I can find. I love my three kids. Oh my gosh, it's hard, I have to beware of idolatry. I love them. But if my wife and me and those three kids are in a boat and I'm the only one who can swim and I can only save one person in that boat, I'm saving my wife. You say, well I've never. Probably not, but there's a lot of truth you've never heard. The greatest thing I can do for those two boys of mine and that little girl, who happens to be one of the most beautiful human beings on the face of the earth and maybe all time, the best thing I could ever do for them is to love their mother hard and long. Because they're going to look up and they're going to go, we may not have security anywhere, but there's security here. Dad's not going anywhere. Dad loves this woman. That's it. When my little boys get old enough, they're going to get a lecture. And if any of you are in family services, you'll probably report me, but this is the way it's going to be. I'll sit down with both those boys and I'll say this, the closest I will ever come to murdering another human being is the day either one of you touch your mother. It's the most sacred thing on the face of this earth. Guess what? Those boys will learn how to treat a woman, won't they? You see? Now you know why I preach in a lot of Baptist churches once. Think about it though. It's the same way with my wife. Do you know why you hear this? Oh, I love to preach this on Mother's Day. I really do. You think about the mother's love. There's nothing like a mother's love. That's not biblical. The Bible says there's nothing like a father's love. It doesn't say anything about a mother's love. Now I'm going to say something, and really, my wife probably fights better than any of you women here and I can take her down. If she doesn't tickle me, I can take her down pretty quick. So if you're thinking about women, you think about coming out of that pew right now and walk up this aisle and fighting me, you better have another thing coming. Because I might not win the fight, but all the people in this county are going to say they've never seen nothing like that before. Now listen to me. One of the reasons why women talk so much about a mother's love is because they're being parasitic. I know this is hard, but I want you to listen to me. They're being parasitic because their husbands are not loving them and giving them what they need from their husbands. They're drawing what they should be getting from their husbands from their children. But children were never called to meet the emotional needs of their mother or their father. And children do not exist for their parents. Men, when you do not love your wife as you ought to, you throw everything in the family totally out of whack. The greatest love, it should not be a mother's love, it should be a wife's love for her husband. And guess what's going to happen? If I treat my wife that way and my little girl, she's regenerate or something, she has 18, 19 years of looking at the way her father honors her mother and then some snotty-nosed, stupid, 18-year-old boy who doesn't even know how to pull his pants up walks up and tries to do something like this, she's going to puke on his shoes. She's going to go, you've got to be kidding me. If a man-eating lion was loose in this room, he'd starve to death because you definitely don't qualify, boy. You know, I know I'm getting kind of just too secular sounding and not very Puritan, but listen to me. And then when my boys look at a girl, they're going to look and say, you've got to be careful that that's a girl. I mean, that's a girl. That's different than a boy or a pig or a dog. You see? And so when one mate drops the ball in this, the other mate should not look at this as, oh, I've been given this horrible lot in life. No, you've been given a special opportunity to glorify God in a way that maybe some other woman hasn't been given. And God is a merciful God. And remember that illustration about the top of the thing. If you're doing all the fighting... I use an illustration that says give place to the wrath of God. I have a sermon to women on how to act if you want God to kill your husband. And it's a very good sermon. I really like it. It's one of my favorite ones to preach. All the women start whipping out notebooks, laptops, everything, trying to get all the... But how to live in such a way so that God will kill your husband. And what it means is in Romans, he says give place to the wrath of God. Well, I love castles. When I'm over in Europe, if I can get to see a castle, I love to see castles. And it's an amazing thing. A castle on the bottom floor has this huge door. I mean, 20 soldiers walking abreast can walk into that castle. What's amazing, you go up to the second floor and most of the stairwells on the real castle, the second floor, they're only this wide. And they go up and there's only one door about this tall and about this wide. Well, they're kind of short. About this tall and about this wide. And you sit and that doesn't make any sense. It makes a whole lot of sense. You see, if the castle is overrun, then everybody in the castle runs up to the second floor. Now let's say that there's 400 soldiers out there and there's only 20 soldiers on the second floor. There's 400 enemy out there. Well, when they come in through that front gate, there's no way that 20 soldiers can stop 400. But those 20 soldiers and all the people in that castle run up to the second floor. One man can stand there with a long spear and defend the entire castle from 400 soldiers because they can only run up there one at a time. Now let's say that the enemy soldiers break in. Everybody runs to the second floor and there's one guy standing up there with a spear. And the fastest enemy soldier runs up the stairs first. Now being fast, he's a little scrawny guy. He can run like the wind, but he can't fight worth anything. So he runs up there first and he's battling like for hours trying to beat this guy. And all these other big soldiers are behind him. And the skinny guy is fighting. He's going, man, I'm getting tired. I can't beat this guy. I don't know what to do. And the big soldier is saying, man, get out of the way. Man, you don't understand. This guy can't do anything with him. He just won't get out of the way and I don't know what to do and it's just ruining it. Get out of the way. Only one of us can be up there at a time. So woman, you've got this terrible husband and he's taking the second floor of that castle. He's a smart man and doing it. And you're going to attack his castle. You're going to dethrone him. He's just holding you off all day long. And you're just going, my husband is such a wicked. You go to prayer meetings and tell everybody how wicked he is and you do all these things and you're just telling people and you're fighting and then you're complaining, God, why don't you help me with my husband? God's going, get out of the way. Give place to the wrath of God. Get out of the way. God, I don't understand why you won't help. Get out of the way. Husband, the worst day in your life is when she gets out of the way. When she gets out of the way, you are in trouble. Now wives, let me share something with you. Don't do this out of spite, but just listen to me. God has a way of dealing with your husband. Man, I want to tell you something. I'm having a bad day and I come in and it's like where's the food and there's no food and I'm hungry. I say, Charo, what's going on? There's no food. I'm dying here. And she comes out and looks at me and she goes, when a Latin woman starts doing this with her head, you know your party's over. I'll tell you why there's no food. And she just charges into me and I walk away totally justified. This woman you gave me. Because she's acting just as bad as I am. But if I walk in there and go, honey, there is no food, what's the deal? I'm out here fighting hell itself. And I come home and there's not even a Pop-Tart. What's going on? And she goes, honey, I'm really sorry. The boy's been sick and I've just been really struggling today and I'll get something on. When she comes at me with that, I go... I go outside and I've got this crowbar. And I just stand there and I go, bam, bam, bam, bam. She's heaped hot coals on my head by her godliness. She has exposed my wickedness by her godliness. And you see, if you would just learn that. And men, it's the same way. If you would just learn that. If I would just learn that. Second thing, if you're a young man, do not marry a Latin. I'm just kidding. I've got the greatest wife in the world. Okay, one more question. This has degenerated so bad that no one even has a question left. I have one. What's the scripture that says that talks about getting your name blotted out of the Lamb's Book of Life? Yeah, you don't want to do that. How does someone get their name blotted out of the Lamb's Book of Life? First of all, He says, I will not blot your name out. And what's going on there? He has given, in my opinion, He has given stunning rebukes to this church. Stunning, horrible rebukes. Now, here's the Lord of Glory. He's standing there. And He's rebuking me with... I mean, sometimes the Lord comes with strong and terrible rebukes. You have a name. You're alive, but you're dead. This, that. Vomit you out of my mouth. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And here's this person sitting there going, is there any hope for me? I mean, look what He said. And then He comes back totally the opposite of what people think the text means. And He comes back and basically what He's saying is this, I've said all these things and they're hard things, but repent, and I will not blot your name out of the book. He's not saying that there's a possibility a true believer can lose their salvation. He is affirming, in my opinion, that even after saying all these hard things to my people, I love you and I will not blot your name out of my book. It's an encouragement. Okay, let's pray. Father, thank You for this day. Thank You for Your kindness to us. And Lord, help us. Lord, in all things, not to be simply hearers of the Word or preachers of the Word, but to be doers of the Word. In Jesus' name, Amen.