In this sermon, the speaker shares personal anecdotes about aging and the impact it has on individuals. He emphasizes that despite the physical changes that come with age, the focus should not be on external appearances but on the inner glow of God's presence. The speaker also highlights the influence parents have on their children, stating that their attitude and countenance can have a greater impact than words. He mentions a medical doctor's testimony about the power of reading scripture to a baby in the womb. The sermon concludes with a discussion on the concept of fiery trials and references the story of Daniel's friends who stood firm in their beliefs despite facing persecution.

Conference Room 6, paper number 47. Women's most vulnerable area of attack. Dr. Jim Logan. You know, I've never married, had children, and I'm an expert, but it's interesting. I don't know if you know Verna Berkey, but if she's ever in the area, you ought to go hear her. She's really wonderful. She does seminars for ladies, and just a really neat lady. And she's remained single all of her life. And some people had a real problem that she's going out, you know, teaching ladies, you know, about successful living and all of that. And they said, how in the world is a single woman, can you talk about families? She said, I grew up in one. I'm not totally foreign to that. But this, what I'm going to be sharing with you, we shared this last year, last minute I got a telephone call last year saying, would you do something for the ladies at the ATIA convention in Knoxville? And I said, well, sure I will. And this year they did a lot more for the ladies, that particular homeschool group. And so we did this last year, and it really ministered to the ladies. And a lot of ladies were blessed, and then they took it around the United States for the regional meetings. And so the testimony on page 126, really, I mean, I trust that you'll read that. It'll really bless your heart as a lady. In fact, we get ladies that call us that are really hurting, and I have them call this lady, Diane Tecklenberg. Her husband is a heart specialist, and they live on the East Coast. And she's been a real encouragement to ladies that are going through what she went through. When, I think one of the greatest heartaches of a woman, as we get into this, is when a woman has a certain vision for her children and the family and that whole thing, but it's not shared by her husband. And that can be very, very, very painful when you see what's happening or you see the direction it's going. And, you know, I'll be talking to the fellows, basically, an emphasis on them next hour, but they talk about the caution of the wife. And I remember when our oldest girl that was really an 8-gallon, when she turned 12, I told my wife that we weren't going to spank her anymore. You know, there's that verse, when they're 12, you don't spank them, it's somewhere in Ecclesiastes or something. And she said, are you sure? And I said, yeah, I mean, you know, after all, she's becoming a young lady. And so my wife was, she didn't feel it was right, but she said, all right. And then all of a sudden, we began to notice an attitude change, which we're not talking about a good attitude change, you know, the rolling of the eyes that we did that yesterday. And you've never seen your kids do that. It's just our awful kids that would do that. And they would go, you know, would you do the dishes? You know, and there's something that's important, I think, in Scripture. And the Scripture teaches this, that obedience needs to precede understanding. Isn't that right? Obedience precedes understanding. But think about this. Here's Moses. And God says, you know, I want you to raise the rod over the water, depart the water. And Moses says, I mean, if I was Moses, I'm going in the daylight. What if it doesn't work? You know, you've ever seen it before? Have you ever seen anybody raise a rod over the water and things happen? And I think Moses was struggling a little bit. And so God said, I want to motivate you, Moses. There's an Egyptian army coming to kill you. He had a choice. Either the Egyptians or raise the stick. But see, his obedience preceded what? Understanding. It's the same way with Noah. You know, these men of faith, they were obedient, although they didn't fully understand what was going to happen. And we think, well, would I be a hypocrite if I am obedient, if I don't understand? But you think about this. You tell your kids, you know, I want you to do the dishes. And they say, well, you know, I don't feel like it. And I know it would be it wouldn't be biblical. I'd be a hypocrite, you know, to do something I didn't feel like doing. And so you just tell your kids, come here and I'll help you feel like it. You know, we'll give you a little help here. But we want obedience. God wants obedience. And, you know, I trust that this will minister to you, ladies. And we want to pick this up. Go back to First Peter. First Peter is an excellent book. It's a book on suffering. And God does a lot of teaching here about suffering. And he tells us about that there's a purpose in suffering. And I think in chapter 1, verse 7, we see that the first reason, he says, is the trial of your faith being more precious than of gold that perish, though it be tried with fire, that it might be found unto the praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And so there are different times that you and I are called to go through the fires. Right? Now, I don't like those experiences. We've had some real, real furnace experiences in our life that I'm glad they're behind us. They're precious. You can learn from them, but they can be very painful. And you may be going through one of those experiences right now that's very painful. When I would teach premarital counseling in a Bible college, we were training pastors to be in premarital counseling, and then we did a course on marriage counseling. And when you get married, and my son got married last year, and it was really neat. And, you know, if your kids could be committed to that. He was committed to wait for God's best. And our daughter made that, all of our kids made that commitment. And when my daughter graduated from high school, she was 17, and a fellow, we were committed to spiritual dating, and we taught that in Bible schools and Christian high schools and so on, how to date on a spiritual level. And so, a fellow asked permission to date our daughter, and I said, no, he was 32 and she was 17. But he was a very godly young man. And he was in our church, we knew him, and I just said, no, I really don't feel that we particularly wanted her to go to Bible college at that time, and our kids were not allowed to date in high school, and that that would be something that would come later on, that it would be a spiritual dating. When I'm talking about dating, it's not permission to make out. I mean, when I use the word dating, I don't want you to have that concept of, you know, kids alone, off somewhere in the dark, and all of that. And, you know, if the kids say, well, you don't trust me, you see, you're right. We don't. You know, we're not just going to open you up to, you know, temptations that you can't handle. We love you too much just to throw you off in a car with a fellow somewhere or put you with a girl somewhere. In fact, fellows, you've got to be more concerned about fellows in a dating relationship than girls, because we taught the girls in the college how to date. It was real simple. I said, it's real easy. Now, let me teach you how to date, and this is what you do. Can you say no? Now, all the girls say no. Now, you're ready to date, see. But the fellows, you look in the Bible what talks about fellows and girls, and it talks about how the strange woman takes the fellow with her eyes. You ever seen those girls that do this, and they call on the phone, and all of that kind of stuff, and a fellow is much more vulnerable than a girl is. I said, you really need to pray for your sons, because I'll tell you those gals who have sensual problems are real traps for boys, and they're warned about them, and God warns about them in the Scripture. Well, anyway, we just told our daughter no, and she went to Bible school. She became a missionary. She came home on furlough, and I said, is there anyone in your life that you really care about? She said, yes, Jeff, because I gave this fellow permission to write our daughter. Not all the time, but correspondence. She said, Jeff. Well, Jeff was this fellow that was older than she is. Now, she's come along in age, and this fellow was really a godly young man, so I wrote him and said, Jeff, are you still interested in dating our daughter? He said, Mr. Logan, do you realize I've waited seven years for you to say yes? Well, that's biblical. I mean, I read it somewhere in Genesis or something. And so, you know, a mother has a lot of concerns. But as we, and our son waited until he was 27, and he was looking for two things in a girl. One was she had to be pure, because he had made a commitment to stay pure at his marriage, and she had to love junior high kids, because he's a full-time junior high youth pastor. And so he was looking for that when God would bring the right one, that would be part of the knowing that this was the girl that God had for him, and he was willing to wait. And he just got married last year. But, you know, when you've got to put on a wedding, you almost want to say, have you ever thought about loping? You know, they're not as easy as what you think. You know, I used to go out and just, you know, will you, will you not take, and so on. You know, as a pastor, that was easy. But lining it all up and all that, it's just, it's not, you know, are you going to invite Aunt Hilda? If you invite Aunt Hilda, you've got to invite Cousin Croker and, you know, on and on and on. You know what I'm saying? You're going to offend somebody somewhere along the line and all that stuff. Well, but when you get married, there are three things that are very, very important to a bride. First of all, where's the aisle? You know, is it down the side? Is it down the middle or whatever? You know, if we go down this one, do we go up this one? You know what I'm saying? And then the other thing is, how are you going to handle the altar? Is it got to be moved or whatever? You know, sometimes it's right in the middle and you have to walk around it. Will the church let us move it out? That kind of stuff. And then, you know, the hymns that will be sung are very, very vital. And you put this together, and this is on the girl's mind. Usually when she's marrying, aisle, altar, hymn. She won't. You know, we try to tell girls that. You won't. You know, you won't do it. You're seeing him at his best. Is this his best? Right. You know, gals need to be... We taught our daughters to be spiritual challenges in dating. To challenge the fellow to be a spiritual leader, to be a godly man. We taught girls that if they went out, and we taught it in the college, if a girl went out with a fellow one time and was not a better person, never to go out with him again. Because it wouldn't be long until she was the worst person. A fellow has a responsibility when he wants to ask permission to do something with a girl that it would be just covered with godliness, impurity, and it would be a very spiritual thing. Because most of the women here, what you want more than anything is a spiritual leader. And if you don't see it in that initial relationship, it just doesn't happen. Right? You don't go into it. You know what I'm saying? The guys will give you whatever they have to do to get you. Make it hard to be gotten. Teach your daughters. Make it really hard to be gotten. These fellows are really going to have to show that they have serious spiritual purpose, and they can lead spiritually. Our oldest daughter was going to a Bible school, and this fellow asked her to go out, and we said they could go out one time. But the second time, he had to ask permission. And so this fellow asked her permission. I mean, he said he wanted to take her out again. And she said, well, you'll have to ask my dad. And he said, well, we're in Michigan, and he's in Washington. She said, yeah, I know. He said, well, how do I do that? She said, I guess you'll just have to figure it out. So he wrote some letters, and he wrote back and forth. And I explained what spiritual dating was, and he set dating goals and all of this. But he went out the second time, and then she came home, and she told him, I'll never be able to go out with you when I come back to school. It was the first fellow she ever dated. The only fellow she ever dated. She ended up marrying him. But she said, I won't be able to go out with you when I come back to school. And he said, why? He said, you're not a spiritual leader. She said, but we have devotions before every date. She says, no, there needs to be more than that. And she said, Tom, I can't go out with you. And so he wrote and said, would you help me to design spiritual dates with your daughter? So we wrote back and forth, and he would set their dating goals and what they were accomplished and their memory goals and all of that for my approval every semester. And so at the end of her college, she could look back over that relationship and see how she was a better person and how he was building the character of Christ in her life and in their relationship. And, you know, that's a real concern on a mom. And we need to train our children because they're not getting it anywhere. We've got to train our children that there are going to be social relationships and how to handle those. And once you feel that your kids have made those commitments, it takes a real pressure off a mom. But there's nothing more painful than seeing your children go down morally. And you begin to pick up on it, right? Long before it's obvious, you begin to pick up in your spirit, something there is not right. But as you walk through Peter, it's all about suffering and different kinds of suffering and this whole thing. And I want you to go to verse 11 of chapter 4 or verse 12. It says, Beloved, think not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you. I wish he hadn't used the word fiery. I don't like that word. If he just said trial, that's enough. But a fiery trial? And when I thought of the fiery trial, I thought of Daniel's friends, you know, that were thrown into the furnace because they wouldn't compromise. They knew what was right and they were going to stand for what was right and true. And they were thrown into the fiery furnace. And you know that when they were thrown in, there was something that was burnt. Do you remember what was burnt? The ropes that bound them. And so as you and I go through fiery trials, and a wife goes through them more than a man, just the way she's put together, her concern and all that. As she goes through that, and often you can't stop them. I mean, it's not something you can stop. You have to go through it. But as you go through it, it can be an experience where some of the things that have bound you have been burnt away. And he said, Don't think it's strange, but rejoice, because you're partakers of Christ's suffering, that when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy. And when we're called to go through the trials and the suffering, we want to look at how women get defeated as they go through this, because Peter deals with the woman's most vulnerable area when she goes through trials. Many, many women. I would talk to our girls at the college. I said, You know, you go to the local churches here in Kansas City. Have you seen these bitter old ladies in the church? Dr. McGee was my pastor, and he had been at a conference, and he came back, and he was describing one of these ladies, and he said this lady came up to give him a piece of her mind, and he didn't think she had enough to part with to give him that one. But he described this lady, and he said, You know, she looked like she'd been weaned on a dill pickle. And so I would tell our college girls, I said, Do you know what these bitter old ladies once were? And they said, What? I said, Bitter young ladies. And when we go through the fires, and the problem about suffering is the ing. What do you mean by the ing? It's the who in the suffering. Do you know what I'm saying? It's the person that's causing me pain that makes it painful because I didn't expect it from my husband. I didn't expect. Maybe you're not going through that, but a lot of women are experiencing a lot of pain because of their husbands, either what they're not doing or their lack of concern or just their coldness or rejection or whatever or the lack of interest in the kids. You know, you raise the kids, and you mow the lawn, and I'll bring in the money. You know, you want to homeschool, that's fine, but I don't want to be a part of it and that kind of thing. That's very, very painful. And a woman has to be very careful. As she goes, she's suffering because what can happen here, you have a choice. The glow of God can come on your countenance or bitterness. Remember the man that went to see Abraham Lincoln? And they asked Abraham Lincoln, What do you think of this man? And Lincoln said, I didn't like his face. I mean, who is he to talk? He wasn't exactly Clark Gable, you know. And they said, Mr. President, that's very unkind. And he said, A man is responsible for his face when he's over 30. He wasn't talking about his nose. He was talking about what radiated from his face. And some of the most radiant Christians that you can ever meet are Christians that went through terrible suffering. But the glow of God came on their face. In Minneapolis or Milwaukee, they had a First Basic Youth Seminar there, and 15,000 people attended. And someone came up to Mr. Gothard and said, Do you realize that Hudson Taylor's grandson is in the audience? And he said, No, I didn't know he was going to attend. So this is before it started, and he parted the drapes. He looked out, and he said, See that fellow over there? I think he's Hudson Taylor's grandson. At the break, see if you can find out. So at the break, this friend of mine went out and was talking and said, You know, we heard that he asked him how he liked the seminar, and he said, Well, it's pretty good so far. And he said, We heard that Hudson Taylor's grandson was going to be attending this. Would you happen to be him? And he said, Yes. So he went back, and he said, All right, Bill. I've got to ask you two questions before I tell you what happened. He said, Have you ever seen Hudson Taylor's grandson? Or great-grandson, whatever the guy is. He's president now of the organization. And he said, No. He said, Have you ever seen a picture of him? And he said, No. He said, Well, Bill, that was him. I mean, 15,000 people, and you picked out Hudson Taylor's grandson. How could you do that? He said, It was easy. The glow of God was on his countenance. You know, and it talks about the righteousness of a mom and dad is passed on to the children for four or five generations. You know, we're affecting our family one way or another, and we can affect them more by attitude than we are by words, right? Do you know that you can – well, I taught a course and how a mother can demonstrate all the fruits of the Spirit to a baby by her countenance. And babies are very – aren't babies sensitive? And, boy, they pick up. And a mom can minister to a child. In fact, you know that you can minister to a child by reading Scripture to it while it's in the womb? Now, I have a testimony by a medical doctor. I know the guy real well. And his wife was pregnant, and he was reading Scripture in the womb. And just before the birth of the baby, they realized the baby was breech. And so this medical doctor told this baby that it was his father, and he told him to turn around because they were going to do it Caesarean, and they didn't want a Caesarean birth. And he told the baby, This is your father. I want you to turn around. The next morning, the baby was turned around, and it was born. Coincidental, of course. That's what the obstetrician said. It was coincidence. This fellow went over to Desert Storm and was over there. His wife is pregnant again, and the baby's breech. And so they allowed him to come home from Desert Storm to be with his wife for the surgery and all that. So he came home, and she mentioned it to the fellow that the dad had talked to the baby. First of all, I'm not a doctor, that kind of a doctor. I'm sorry if you have tonsillectomy and that kind of thing. I'm not doing that after the meeting. I'm a talk doctor. The guy said, First of all, babies don't turn around at that time. They just don't. They turn over, but they don't flip around. I don't understand all the medical stuff. And so when she told this doctor that, he said, Well, that was coincidental. So he came home. Now, this time, he wasn't able to read the Bible to his baby because he's over there rounding up the Arabs and stuff. Or whatever they were doing over there. And so he just told his baby, This is your father, and I want you to turn around. And the next day, guess what? Anyway, I got this whole testimony. We're trying to figure out how does it go out in spiritual warfare. Anyway, we got the testimony to go out in one of my prayer letters as he shared what he did. But there was obedience to the child, to the voice of his parents. And we know so many parents that have played the right kind of music. In fact, they found this, that if a mother exposes herself to rock music, Christian or regular rock music, the baby has an irregular heartbeat while that music's going on. And more and more doctors are doing things on that whole thing because of the, I don't understand, the beat. The beat is the opposite of the heart, and it affects the heart of the baby, the intrauterine, when that music's going on. So as much as you can, just try to keep the child from that. They don't know what the long-term effects of that on the baby's heartbeat, but it does affect the baby's heart. So those that are concerned about your pregnancy, you just want to be really careful that you don't expose yourself to that kind of stuff. Well, suffering is going to happen in all of our life. And he goes on and explains about being reproached and so on and let God glorify you. Then verse 19, it says, Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls. Very interesting. To him in well-doing as to a faithful creator. I see man as a three-part being, spirit, soul, and body. I believe that when we become a Christian, that God's spirit comes into our spirit. As you know that we specialize in people with demonic problems. Basically, that's all the counseling I do. It's when we know definitely there's enemy involvement in someone's life. That's what we do at our counseling center. And someone who is quote-unquote demon-possessed would be someone who's where a demonic spirit has entered their spirit. Well, if Christ's spirit is there, a demonic spirit can't get in there. So a Christian cannot be demon-possessed, but a non-Christian can be. Because with my spirit, I make contact with the spirit world. And are there people contacting the spirit world that aren't Christians, that are powerful? Say yes. They are. The medicine man, and some of you get our pro-letter, know our ministry. We work with the Sioux Indians. When the medicine man died, the most powerful medicine man in the Sioux Nation, when he died, we went out to where he was buried because we were looking for one of his sons, because his son was having some problems with something I said and we wanted to straighten it out. But this medicine man was carried for one hour, about a mile, his coffin from the paved road, a dirt road to where his little cabin was, and they buried him out there. And most of the people on that Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is close to the Presidents, where the Presidents are carved in, most of the Indians were there. And they were big, creative Indians following this medicine man because he was so powerful. 55 eagles circled the coffin for the whole hour. And if you would tell the Indians, there's no power here, there's no reality here, they're going, you don't know. There is. Eagles don't do that. And so there is power in the spirit world, and there are people with their spirit that make contact with the spirit world. They're not believers. We're talking about unbelievers. They make contact with the spirit world, and they open up their spirit to spirits, and they're in real trouble. But for us as believers, believers come under attack in their soul. And the soul is my mind, my emotions, and my will. And he says, when you suffer, what do you need to do? Guard your soul. Guard that part of you. And if you've been sitting, some of you have been sitting in all day yesterday with me, we started out showing a scripture where the scripture teaches that your mind, that Satan put thoughts in your mind. Well, that's part of my what? My soul. And then there's my emotions. And when we learned yesterday, when my mind and emotions believe something are not true, I'm being deceived. It's not only I have thoughts that are wrong, I have feelings that go with that. And we use the illustration of inferiority. People don't think they're inferior, they what? They feel inferior. They even say, I feel inferior. That's deception. There's no such thing as an inferior Christian. I'm in Christ. You know, I have his righteousness. I have 36 things that Christ gave me. Paul, in Ephesians chapter 1, was led by the Holy Spirit to say, do you understand your inheritance in Christ? Do you know what is rightfully yours? As a mom or a dad or as a young person. They're all yours. These things are all yours when you're in Christ. 36 things he gives you. Tremendous things. You don't know what they are. Satan doesn't want us to know what they are, because we'll struggle with all these things because we're trying to earn what God has already given me. You know, I have acceptance. I looked for acceptance all of my life. Did you grow up in a home where you were rejected? I was. Never was accepted. Pastoring my second church, I told some of them yesterday, I was about 38, I asked my mom if my dad liked me. I had no indication because of all the rejection I had. And it affected me. I couldn't speak to strangers. I had a terrible self-image. I was afraid if I spoke to a group like this about warfare, that somebody would get up and walk out. Then I would walk out second. Because I didn't want to be rejected. And now I realize what? I'm accepted in the beloved. I have acceptance. He'll never reject me. I have the ultimate acceptance. And let me tell you how freeing it is when you know who you are in Christ. And I just can't encourage you enough. And women are so susceptible to being attacked in the emotional areas. That's a real vulnerable area, and we'll see that as we look in Scripture. So, if part of my thinking isn't true, and my feelings agree with that wrong thinking, what kind of decisions am I going to make? Wrong ones. So, he's saying when you go through the fires, when you go through suffering, and this suffering is according to the will of God, God is allowing this to happen. It's part of the purifying process of your own life and maturing process that God wants to bring about. Be sure to guard your soul because the enemy is going to come and try to get you to make decisions that are not wise. Have you ever prayed to be godly? You ever prayed that? You know what we do when we pray that prayer? We shove away all the tools. We don't want to be chipped away. We don't want to be refined through the fires. I mean, none of us do. I mean, if you're thinking right, who wants to go through the fires? And yet, it's part of the process. And so, what do I do when this happens? And we want to see what happens to ladies when they're suffering basically for doing right. And that is what the last part of 1 Peter 2 is about, and much of chapter 3 is about. Because Paul says in chapter 2 that if you're doing right and you're suffering for doing right, that what you need to do is to realize, to thank God that you are suffering for doing right. He says, For this is thankworthy if a man or a woman for a conscience towards God, their hearts right before God, endureth grief, suffering wrongly. He says, How is, what glory is it if you're buffeted for your faults and you take it patiently, but when you do well and you suffer for it and you take it patiently, this is acceptable to God. The next verse says, And hereunto were you called. You and I are called to suffer for doing right. Because if your Christianity doesn't work in suffering, as a non-Christian, I don't need it. Do I? Do I have to go up to Niagara Falls in order to have peace? Or walk in the woods? Anybody can get that. And often when we're suffering, because remember when Daniel's friends suffered, what happened to the people that were on the outside that were watching them go through the fire? What did they see? What did they see? They saw Christ in the midst of their suffering. Remember? They saw Him in the midst. But you know what's interesting? The Bible never tells us that the guys in the furnace saw Him, but those watching saw Him. And sometimes as we suffer, we don't see Christ. We know He's with us, but others see Him and they realize that we've got something. Now, the story of Diane Tecklenburg that's in the book here for you. Diane was a homeschool mother married to a pastor's son who was a heart specialist. And I'm not going to read you the testimony because you have it. But she began to realize there was something radically wrong with her marriage. And her husband began to pull away more and more and more. And you'll read that in there, how he just kept pulling back from her. And she kept feeling more and more alone. And he began rejecting her physically and verbally. He was highly respected in his church and has a high position in a Christian organization. If I mentioned it, you'd know it. As one of their area leaders. And she's hurting. She has two children she's trying to raise. And she would hear people get up in church and say, God met all the needs of my heart. You've heard those, all that kind of stuff. And she would sit there and say, but it doesn't meet mine. I'm hurting. I'm lonely. I'm rejected. I have money. But she came from a wealthy family. I have money to buy this and buy that. And she knew that she could go and get women to pray for her husband. Would you pray for me? Oh, I'd love to. And I'll share it with some of my other friends. They're having real problems. You know what I mean? And she's going, wait, I can't be disloyal to him. You know, I don't feel that God wants me to share this with all kinds of people. And so what Diane did is she wanted to see if scripture was true. And this is her story. Could Christ meet the deepest needs of her heart when her husband didn't and wouldn't? And so for five years, she began a pilgrimage, which is in the three-page testimony of could she become a godly woman and where the Lord would meet those needs that the husband was not meeting. And at the end of five years, Diane came to this conclusion and she prayed this, Lord, if I have to give up my walk and relationship with you, for my husband to change, I don't ever want him to change because he could never meet the needs that you're meeting in my life right now. And Diane truly became a godly woman. And then her husband said, he heard me speak two times at medical seminar. He said, I think I'll go see Jim Logan. And her husband came. Her husband was under tremendous bondage of the enemy. And he was set free. They've gone back. And the two of them now are helping other couples come to freedom in Christ. Beautiful thing that she waited five years and just allowed the Lord. And she didn't share with anybody. And she didn't nag. She just kept looking to Jesus. So if you're hurting and you want Diane's number, just call our office. And if you don't have money, Diane will take collect calls. And this she feels is her ministry. God put her through the fires so that she could come alongside women that are going through the fires and encourage them. Because she knows. Women said, man, she knows. I said, I know. She knows better. You know, I'm a husband. I'm the one that causes the fires. You need a lady that's gone through it. She can do much more over the telephone than I can do with you sitting in here. Because you can identify with her right away. And they've raised godly kids. And the kids were not aware because she would not tell them. And her kids are wonderful, wonderful kids. And I know both of them. One's married to a fellow that teaches in a Bible college. When I went to the Bible college, I didn't know the Teckenbergs that well. And the kids are saying, have you met this professor's wife? She's the most wonderful person. This is a testimony of the students about this professor's wife, which was their daughter, the oldest girl that grew up. And they have a son now that's just a tremendous fellow who's open to God and for whatever he wants him to do. And now the kids know what went on, but they didn't know and they felt they needed to know. And when you've got testimonies going on, the dad has his testimony, how he was freed of demonic spirits and how they were controlling his life and how he was under bondage from a young, young boy. And all through medical school, he kept reading medical journals to find out, could he be free of this? And the medical journals said no. And so he thought he had to live with it and that whole thing. Now we get to chapter 3, and we want to look at Paul's concern for wives. In chapter 3, he says, likewise ye wives. Now, we look in chapter 2 and it says that we're called to suffer as Christ suffered, leaving us an example on how to suffer and to suffer in a proper way that Christ did not suffer because of sin in his life or because of what he said. And when he was reviled, he did not revile. When he suffered, he didn't threaten, but he committed the situation into God's hand because God judges righteously. And Diane, again and again, might have to lift your husband up to God. And say, God, you're the only one who can change him. If I try to put pressure on him to change, he reacts, he resists, he resists me, and I'm just releasing him to you. Your spirit can change him, but I can't. So she kept releasing him. Now he's talking about suffering for doing right. He says, likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husband, that if any obey not the word of God, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. Do you have independent Baptist churches here in this area? You know, they're real conservative. And so Dr. Meyer, or Dr. Minnereth, of Minnereth-Meyer Clinic, his brother was pastoring an independent Baptist church in Kansas City. And so they thought our college was not quite conservative enough, and they weren't sure if they should have any of the professors speak there, but they chanced it on me to speak to the ladies' group. So I came over to speak to this ladies' group of a very, very conservative church that, I mean, real squeaky. And so I got up before the ladies' group, and they didn't know who I was, and I asked them, I can't remember how I got into it, but I got into it and I asked them about when was the last time they had a lady evangelist in that church. Yeah, right, you got it? You know, the ladies are going, wrong pew, you know. And I said, the lady that asked me, she's real nervous, and I said, you don't have lady evangelists come here? I said, well, isn't any of your pastoral staff ladies? Oh, man, and the ladies are gathering their purses, and all this stuff, we're going to have this exodus of women from the ladies' group. And I said, do you mean to tell me that your husbands wouldn't come to this church to hear a lady preacher? And the ladies said, no! Then I said, they probably wouldn't want to be married to one either. They put their stuff down. Do you see what it says here in Peter? It says, if your husband is not obeying the word of God, you will not win him by preaching at him. That's the word of God. Because he'll tune you out. Isn't that right? He just doesn't listen. So he says, that won't work, but he can be won how? By a godly life. He can be won by your life, not by your preaching. And that's so vital. That's a real key, and we've seen it work again and again and again. Five years for Diane. Sometimes it's seven years. Sometimes it's ten years. But remember you said, for better or what? Worse? You didn't know how worse could be, right? Sometimes. Sometimes it's pretty worse. And you're going, boy, things are really going bad right now. But we're committed. I've committed to this marriage. And I'm committed for the children. And I'm going to hang in there. And if right now it's not going the way it ought to be, I am not going to give an answer to God for my husband. Are you? Can you stand to give an answer for your husband? You can have an answer for being a wife and a mother. And so you just want to be the best wife and mother you can be before God. And release him to God and let God deal with him. That he might catch the burden for the family and then take his place in the home. It says that a husband can be won by the life of the wife while they behold your chaste life with fear. Whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of the platening of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel. He's not saying that it's wrong to, he said, listen, godliness is not found in Avon. And if you're getting your godliness from Avon, as you get older, you're going to say, does this come with a roller and a gallon size? It's not there. And he's saying that, you know, expensive clothes and expensive jewelry and fancy hairdos is not what he's talking about here. There's nothing wrong with having nice clothes. I'm not putting that down, but he's saying that's the wrong place. That's not where it's at. He's saying where it's at is not the outward adorning. It's not the issue. The inner issue is the inner adorning in verse 4. He said, but let it be of the hidden person of the heart, which is not corruptible. You know, I mean, years ago, our kids are kind of spread out and I was pastoring a church in the Seattle area and my son was in the family room and he was going through photographs and he was about four years old and he dashed out in the living room and I heard him say, come quick, come quick, see daddy with hair. We're corrupting. You know, I meet people that I graduated from college with. Mine are the old. Yeah, I can't believe how old they've gotten. But you know, that's happening, isn't it? You know, gravity's against us and that's going to happen, but he's saying there's, so if you put the emphasis there, you're in trouble, right? But he says that's not where the emphasis is to be. So the emphasis is to be inside something that will not corrupt, that will make a woman more beautiful and more beautiful as she begins to develop these qualities. And there's two qualities that will make a woman extremely beautiful and they're the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price. Now, what is the opposite of these things? And the opposite of these things is where a woman is vulnerable. See, God says, develop these. Satan says, no. Because if you do, you'll be classified as a godly woman and I'm going to work on these areas of your life so you don't develop these ornaments. The first is a meek spirit. What is the opposite of a meek spirit? It's anger. Now, you can all walk out or stay and I hope you stay, but I'll tell you this. Women have a greater struggle with anger than men. They really do. It's different. There are three Greek words for anger. One is just a generic term, anger. One of them is more the husband's kind of anger in the Greek and I'll explain in English. It's the Mount St. Helens type. You know, the guy blows up, he feels great, but the family is devastated by the fallout. You know, he got it off his chest. Let's go on, go on. You just devastated all of us. Oh yeah, but let's go. I had to get it off my chest. Well, that's usually not a woman's type. It's the other type. It's called long nose in the Greek and it's the charcoal briquette type. Hard to start and stays real hot after the meat's done. The slow burn, right? That's the lady's type. She's more vulnerable to that. And just, you know, she's deceiving. And the enemy wants you to have that kind of anger and he's saying, you know, guard against that. Guard against that. Release us to God. Release what's happening to God. The second area that a woman struggles with is a quiet spirit. A quiet spirit does not mean she's a talker or a non-talker. It has to do with fear. Women struggle with fear. In fact, that's why they get angry a lot of times. Can't you see what's happening? Can't you see what the kids are doing? And this fear comes over them and they need that quiet trust in God. Sometimes God has to take a child's situation to get your husband's attention. It's painful, but he begins to see. You know, I mean, someone said, you know, a woman walks in the house and she sees a crack and she's concerned. And the husband doesn't wait until the roof's blown off. I think we ought to do something. As it's pouring in, I think it's about time too, honey. I've been praying about it for 40 years. See, I believe that a woman has her world and a man has his world. Women are not allowed by some men to function in the world, I think, as God intended. Right? They need a lot more freedom to function in their world. And then a man comes into the woman's world and he goes out of the woman's world. Isn't that right? Don't you stay home? If you're homeschoolers, what do you do? At work? On breaks and lunch? No. You're home, that's your world. Isn't that your home? Most of you women are committed to be, that's your world. Your husband, what? Comes and goes from your world. And so I realized as a husband that I really needed to find out what is my wife's concern in her world? Because I'm coming into that world. And she needs freedom in that world. She needs freedom to have a house as she likes. And we just moved into a new home and I said, don't you think this rocket would look good there? And she said no. And I said, I'm the husband of this thing, you have that rocket there. Oh, honey, I'm so thankful. Now, we'd had a big fight. It's her house. She doesn't think so? That's fine. You know what I'm saying? Some women have no say. Nothing. It's awful. It's not right. Women do have opinions. Someone said opinions are like noses. Everybody has at least one. So they do and a man needs to listen to his wife's concerns. He needs to listen to her burden in her world and help her to be able to function as effectively as she can in her world and not make it difficult for her. He's got his world where he works and he maybe has authority in that world, but he goes in and out of hers and he should do everything he can to make your world as secure and as safe and as functionable as you possibly can. Now, so we have this meek and a quiet spirit, which inside of God is great price. He says, for after this manner in all time, the holy women also trusted in God. That's the first sign of a holy woman. There are three signs of a holy woman in Scripture. The first sign is where is their trust? Their trust is in God. Secondly, it says, they adorn themselves, how? With a meek and a quiet spirit. Thirdly, they're in subjection unto their own husbands. They got under his protection and that's the real thing we're going to function, we hope, with the men in the next hour. It's how they provide spiritual protection for a family. That's really their main goal. Even as Sarah, who obeyed Abraham, you know what is interesting here? And I have a line drawn. God has never asked a woman to trust her husband. Do you know that? They're not trustworthy. They'll let you down. You put your confidence in a person, what's going to happen? They'll let you down. God says, entrust him to me. Trust me to work in him. I thought it was, a lot of women, that was real encouraging that they weren't called to trust their husbands. They ought to put their trust there. Put your trust in God. Sarah trusted God, but she obeyed Abraham because she knew that God was bigger than Abraham and that God could turn his heart and God could work through him. She called him Lord or boss. I don't think she did. He said, is dinner ready? Yes, boss. No, I don't think that's... I think it was an attitude that she had that God had put him over the home and that she had her place in the home and the children did so. And so, even Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are as long as you do well or do what's right and are not afraid with any amazement. Literally, that could be translated, don't give in to hysterical fears. And I think the fear thing is stronger than the anger thing in a woman. And when a woman becomes really fearful, guess what she has a tendency to do? To take matters in her own hands and it's matters that aren't hers. And you know, women, you have a mother quality. And I think it's just inborn in you, right? There's just a mothering. You see little girls, what do they want to play with? Snakes and frogs and... No, they want to play with what? Dolls. And so, within the heart of most women there is a mothering quality. And remember, a lot of insincere fellows will try to develop that in your daughter by saying, you don't know how much you're helping me. And the guy's a jerk. I mean, he's a real loser. And he awakens those mothering instincts. Now, if they get married, there's something in the Bible about marrying your mother. It doesn't work. That relationship is doomed. Because who's supposed to be helping... I mean, who's supposed to be the leader here? Not the wife. And he's going to resent that after they're married. You're just like my mother. Well, you liked it before we were married. You know? So, this mothering instinct is in a woman. And many women mother their husbands. They try to protect them. You ever tried to take... I was on a farm. I don't know anything about farms. And we're walking across, and there was just one wire that was across for the... as we were going to go into the cornfield. And they said, raise that wire so we can go under. And I grabbed it. And it happened to be in little white things on the post. I grabbed it. Well, I'll never do it again. But I grabbed it once. You know, that's quite a jolt. And I wasn't prepared to meet the Lord at that time. So then, I mean, they knew they really had a green one. So, we went, and they had this... it was a small barn. And there was the cutest piglets out in the... you know, over the fence, the wooden fence down in there. And they said, have you ever picked up a baby pig? And I said, no. And so I walked out, and I picked up the baby pig. When you pick up a baby pig, they're wired to make a noise. And he squealed. And I heard a... And I looked, and here she comes out the door. I threw the pig, jumped on the fence, she hit the fence. I thought, well, what's going to go over? See, that's the mothering instinct, isn't it? I mean, even pigs got it. And there's something about a wife wanting to protect her husband. And God may want that pain to what? Bring him to his knees. Bring him to the end of what? S-E-L-F. And show him his knees. So, wives, be careful. You know how it is. So many women want to protect their husbands and their children and so on, and you've got to be careful. You may be prolonging the agony. You just need to release them to God and say, God, this family isn't close to what you said, and I'm trusting you. Because I know you love us. You love our children. These children are the heritage of the Lord. You opened and closed the womb. You gave us these children. And, you know, I have a tremendous opportunity of building qualities in their life. I have a wonderful opportunity of showing the children how to respond to their father in times when things aren't right. You know? And I'm just going to keep living before you. And, Lord, there are two things that I want to develop, and I know the enemy is going to be shooting arrows at me. One is to become fearful. And then I act on fear. And 1 Peter 5-7 says this, God has not given us the spirit of what? Of fear, but of law and power and soundness of mind. And if you allow fear to begin to grab a hold in your mind, you will not think soundly. You will not make right decisions. You'll make decisions based on fear and anxiety. Let me share this about anxiety. I really believe this. Let's say that I drove a car, and it's outside the building. And you can get real close here. And I've got a flat tire, and someone took my jack. So I'd like a couple of ladies, if you would come out and hold my car up while I change the tire. Oh, I'll do that. You know, we've got these servers that'll do anything. I'll do that. And so the ladies go out, and they grab the car, and they give it a heave. What might they feel back here? Pain. Is that bad? The pain? No. Pain is good. Pain tells me I've lifted a load that's too heavy for me to carry. This is what I believe. I believe as pain is to the physical body, anxiety is to my spirit. Philippians 4.7 says what? It says that be anxious for what? Nothing. And I believe, ladies, as soon as you begin to sense an anxious spirit, it's God's calling you to prayer. He's saying, you've picked up a load that's too heavy to carry. Give it to me, and I'll carry it for you. My burden's light. But the only way that you will give it to the Lord is if you trust Him. And I don't mean for salvation. Can you trust Him? Can you trust Him in this situation? Can you trust Him in this family situation? If you can trust Him, then you can what? Pick that up and give it to Him. So the next time you begin to have an anxious spirit, realize God is calling you to prayer. So it's not wrong to be anxious. It's wrong to stay anxious. You know what I'm saying? It's wrong because anxiety never solved anything. What has worry ever done for you except make you sick? Worry doesn't solve anything. Or anxiety, however you want to call it. I just really believe that, hey, I need to pray about this. I need to release it to God and go on. And I'm going to trust God that He loves me. I'm committed to Him. And I'm committed to be as best as I can the mother that God wants me to be, the wife that God wants me to be. And I'm looking to Him to say what? Well done, thou good and faithful woman. Great will be your reward in heaven. And maybe your husband will never change. Maybe he'll change in five years. I don't know. That's God's business, isn't it? God's in the changing business. Just let God do it. You try to do it, He'll shove you away. He'll react to it. You know, men don't like that. I don't think... I mean, I'm not a woman, but I don't think women like it either. Do you like it? Any ladies in the front row like that? When a husband tries to change you? I don't think anybody likes it very much. So just trust God. Father, we thank you so much for the ladies that are here. And you know the hurts. You know what's going on. But Father, we know that the enemy would want us to get our eyes on our circumstances and off of Christ. To get our eyes on the pain, on our situation, and all of a sudden we feel like this is hopeless. And yet we have a God of hope. And so, Father, right now, if there are husbands that are really all just really not good, Lord, we commit these guys to you. We just release them to you. You know where they are. You know what they're doing. You know what's going on in their life. You know their priorities. Lord, we release these men to you. And we say, Father, your word says that you will perfect that which concerns us and concerns them. And so we give your Holy Spirit the freedom to work in the lives of these fellows. If there needs to be repentance, we ask, Father, that you would grant them repentance to bring them to the knowledge of the truth. So, Father, we pray that you administer to the ladies that are here. And the ladies that are hurting and ladies that are in pain because of a lack of the leadership in the home. Father, minister to them. Put your arms around them. Let them know that you love them and that you see their work. You see their effort to try to do what's right before you. So, honor these ladies, Father. Honor them with children that will grow up that will do great damage to Satan and his kingdom. And their lives will be a real testimony to the grace of God. We ask this, that you would be glorified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.