This sermon emphasizes the importance of forgiveness, daily seeking deliverance from evil, dying to self, and encouraging one another in marriage. It highlights the need to forgive daily, seek victory over sin, die to self, and encourage each other daily to build a godly home.

I mentioned how the Bible begins with a marriage in Genesis 2 and the New Testament ministry of Jesus begins with a marriage in John 2 and ends with, the Bible ends with a marriage in Revelation 19, marriage of Christ and the church. But we also see that in both these examples where in the beginning of the Old Testament and New Testament, there were problems. There was a problem in that marriage and there was a problem in the wedding too. And that teaches us that in every marriage there will be problems. In one case it was due to the devil coming between Adam and Eve. In another case it could have been because they did not plan sufficiently to have enough wine for the guests or unanticipated guests turned up, I don't know whether that happened those days, gate crashes like we have sometimes at our weddings. But whatever it is, there was not a planning for the future and that can cause problems in a marriage too, you know, that's what we see in Genesis 2. But the wonderful thing, that's not the end of the story. In both cases, God intervened and solved the problem. So we must remember that, that the end of the story is there's no problem too difficult for God to solve. So we must approach marriage with this attitude, there is no problem that I can ever face in my married life or with my family and my children that God cannot solve. Or to say it positively, every problem that I'll ever encounter in my marriage or in my family and my children, my Heavenly Father can solve it. Jesus Christ has got all authority in heaven and earth, he can solve every problem, that is the message of every miracle. I remember taking a series of studies on the miracles of Jesus and the title of the series was God Can Solve Every Problem, because that is the message I get from the miracles of Jesus that anytime people came to Jesus with any problem, whatever it was, physical, material, whether it is lack of wine or lack of food or physical sickness, etc., God had an answer and Jesus could solve the problem, particularly when we are his children. So we must remember that, we must approach marriage with great hope. I have known of a lot of single, I mean children who have grown up and who are very hesitant to get married, even when they are 30, 35, 40 years old. And when you inquire why they have seen such an unhappy marriage in their own home with their own parents, they say, well, I don't want a home like that, I'd rather be single. And it is quite possible that many of you have seen very unhappy, seen a very unhappy home with your own parents and you say, is my married life going to be like that? No, it is not. Maybe your parents called themselves believers, but they didn't believe in a life of victory. They didn't believe that sin shall not have dominion over you. They didn't believe that your old man is crucified with Christ. I find, you know, that the world can be divided into two categories of people. Those who believe and accept that Christ died for all my sins on the cross and I receive that and I am forgiven. That divides the world into two. And we can say 95% are on the wrong side, even though it's free. There's probably less than 5% of believers, real believers in the whole world. Now you get into this group of 5% of believers, that can be again divided into two. One who only believe that Christ died for my sins on the cross and the other who also believe that I died with Jesus on the cross. That is a truth which 95% of believers do not understand or believe or accept, just like 95% of human beings don't know that Christ died for their sins. And so, why is it so many people in the world live with guilt? They don't believe that Christ did it all on the cross. Why are so many believers living defeated lives? They've never gotten to the truth of Romans 6 and Galatians 2.20 that I died with Jesus. There is a solution to the problem. You know what? There was a problem in the marriage of when, as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, God came, made them confess their sin, that was the first step, even though they reluctantly did it. They finally admitted that they did it. It's not that God didn't know. God knows all our sins. Why does He make us confess sins which He already knows we did? Because He wants honest people. He wants us to acknowledge. And that's very difficult. It's very difficult to confess sin without putting the blame on somebody else. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and this tendency is in us to blame something else. Because if I can't find a person to blame, I'll say, oh, it was such tremendous pressure of work today, I lost my temper. No, brother. It's your filthy, evil flesh. Haven't you thought of, don't you remember days when there was no pressure of work and you still lost your temper? We have to get rid of this habit of putting the blame on something or some event or some circumstance or some person other than ourselves. Like, I think it was Amy Carmichael who said, if you carry a glass of sweet water, no matter how heavily somebody jolts it, it'll only be sweet water that spills out. So bad words spill out of your mouth. It was always there. And don't say, somebody shook me and then the bad words, created bad words. No. It was always there. Thank God the fellow shook you and showed you that what you have inside is rotten stuff. I can empty it out and get some good stuff there. So the next time somebody shakes me, something good will come out. Proverbs 15 verse 1 says, a gentle answer can turn away anger. Do you know what a beautiful word that is? Proverbs 15 verse 1, a gentle answer can turn away anger. Tell me from your past experience, I'm sure all of you have got angry with your husbands or wives sometime, at least once. I did. If you're ashamed to raise your hands, I did. We've all done it. I didn't grow up with a natural, gentle, quiet type of temperament. I grew up as a regular child of Adam, full of anger and all types of things. But God has forgiven me and given me victory. So that it never happens now, even once a year. But that's just to give you hope that I started in the same gutter that you all started. Don't give up. You can climb out of it. If you're determined to get out of it, you can get out of it. So when we lost our temper, it's because there's something inside that has come out which we never cleansed. The Bible says, let's cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. So when Adam and Eve, God came with a solution, the seed of the woman is going to come to crush the serpent's head. Immediately he gave a solution. And the same thing in the marriage of Cana, when the message is given to Jesus, they have no wine. Now you can come to Jesus and say, Lord, I have no wine. The wine in our marriage has run out. He thought it would last for many years, but ran out pretty quickly. Go to Jesus. Do you know how much wine he made that day? 600 liters. That is 600 liters. What a lot of wine that is for those few guests in a house. He always gives in abundance. He never gives teaspoons. He gives in abundance. If you come to him and acknowledge your need and believe that he can solve that problem, that's the message of the first marriage in Cana. And it says there that Jesus displayed his glory. And Jesus wants to display his glory in your marriage as well. See when God made Adam, I look at it like this. He gave him two gardens, not one. One was the garden of his marriage to Eve. And the other was the garden of Eden that he had to cultivate. It's like when you get married, you have two things. One is your family life, and the other is your work life. For Adam, his work life was the garden of Eden. He was a gardener. His other garden was his relationship with his wife. And he neglected this garden, his relationship with his wife. That's not important. My work is important. It's a very common mistake that a lot of married couples are doing today. Work is so important. I've got to get the garden done. God's given me this job. Now I have to do it. That's great. What about the other garden God gave you? Didn't God give you that? And it says in Proverbs 24, Proverbs in chapter 24, about a man who neglected his garden. Proverbs 24 and verse 30, I passed by the field of a lazy man and the vineyard of a man who lacked wisdom. Either lazy or lacking wisdom, they're both in the same category. And it was completely overgrown with weeds and thistles, and all the fences were broken down. Picture of some marriages, weeds and thistles and the fences broken down. Now if you took that type of an attitude to your job, you'd have been sacked long ago. Because your boss won't allow thorns and thistles and weeds and broken down fences in your place of work. He expects you to keep that garden properly. And therefore, you're very careful because you don't want to lose your job. You want to get money. You want to get a promotion in your job. And so you keep that garden of your job carefully. Pull out the weeds, pull out the thistles, how faithfully you do it because it's an important garden. And the other garden God gave you, oh, well, that's OK. It's not so important. My boss can sack me. My wife will never sack me because she's taught in CFC, divorce is wrong. See how we take advantage of situations? It's like people who take advantage of a kind boss. I have very rarely in my life seen a believer who can work for a believer boss in a faithful way. Almost everywhere I have seen when a believer works for a hard, demanding, unbeliever boss, he works very faithfully. Put that same fellow under a believer boss who's very kind and nice. He'll come late for work. He won't do his job properly. I have seen that in every country. What does that prove? We are people who just take advantage of others. So because you have a very demanding boss, you keep that garden neat and tidy. But with your wife, you can just take advantage. And it doesn't matter whether I spend time with her or not. It doesn't matter if the garden is neglected. So I went by the field of this lazy man who lacked wisdom. It was completely overgrown with all this. And when I saw it, I took a long look. Where is 32? And I thought about it. And those and that garden preached a sermon to me. And I listened. That garden preached a sermon to me, and I listened. A little sleep here, a little nap there. Take a day off here. Take a day off there. Sit back. Take it easy. You know what comes next? A dirt poor life. And poverty is your permanent house guest. I was reading from the message. You know that. And therefore, in job, you're careful. But you know, that's also what happens in many marriages. I mean, if you look at two houses next to each other, both of which have got a little garden. And one is full of weeds and thistles and rubbish. And the other is beautiful with flowers and neatly planted rows. And the grass is green. You think it is because God was partial to that person? That he sent more rain there and less rain here? It's just next to each other. Nobody, none of us have got that crazy idea. We don't say, oh, well, ground is sometimes better in some places and not so good in other places. The type of excuse we make, oh, well, brother, they've got a happy marriage because some wives are better. My wife is not like that. It's like this man whose garden is in a rotten state saying, oh, well, my neighbor, he happens to have some good ground. My ground is not so good. We always have an excuse. From the days of Adam, we have an excuse. We are OK. When children go astray, brother, all children are not the same. Some children tend to be a little stubborn and they go astray. That brother is lucky enough to have some good children, so they grew up God-fearing. As long as you keep putting the blame on others, you'll always be like Adam, outside paradise. God said, get out of paradise. The thief on the cross acknowledged, I am at fault. I don't blame my parents. I don't blame the judge or the police or anybody else or the gangsters who taught me to murder. Me to blame. Jesus said, come with me to paradise. Paradise is meant for those who will take the blame themselves and not blame their wives or the serpent or circumstances or anything else. Lord, I am at fault. Give my mercy. If your marriage is weak, if it's not happy, if it's not all that should be, I am to blame. The Lord says, I'll make your marriage a paradise. Come with me. Today you'll be with me in paradise. What a promise. Why did he get that promise? Did he have a big theological questionnaire to answer? Do you believe that I'm going to rise from the dead? Do you believe that I'm dying for your sins? He said, Lord, remember me, a pathetic sinner. I'm 100% to blame. The Lord said, come with me to paradise. It's not just giving the correct words. The Lord sees the heart. So that's a very important lesson to learn, dear brothers and sisters. Don't neglect the garden that God has given you. And so there are some rules in bringing in, you know, keeping this garden. It says in Genesis 2 in verse 10, there was a river, I like that, that flowed out of Eden to water the garden. From there it divided and it became four rivers. To me, that's the need in our garden, Genesis 2, 10, a river, the river of God. You see that in Genesis 2. You read that in Revelation 22, the river flowing from the throne, the Holy Spirit. We need to be open, brothers and sisters, to the Holy Spirit in our homes. I get up every day and whenever I pray with my wife, one of the prayers I pray is, Lord, please fill me with the Holy Spirit today. I never want to live a single day without being filled with the Holy Spirit. I cannot make it through the day without the Holy Spirit's power. It's like a man who's got no money. It's like a beggar. Whatever gifts he received from people yesterday was spent yesterday. He comes to the gate again, says, give me power. So there's a river, that's a secret. And when that river flows, then the garden becomes fresh and good. And I like that verse. There's gold in the land of Avila and the gold is good. When the Holy Spirit is in control of our life, then money is good. When the Holy Spirit's not in control of our life, money can be a destroyer of our life. How many problems come in marriage because of money? So keep that in mind. We must be open to the Holy Spirit continuously in our life, every day. I think of this verse in Proverbs in chapter eight. Proverbs eight, it says, and verse 34, 35. Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts. What for? Lord, fill me with the Holy Spirit for today's tasks. Whether in your office or in your home, whichever garden. Lord, I want the river to flow full through me today. Who watches daily. It's a picture of a beggar. When I read that, I get the picture of a beggar who goes to the house of a generous man and knocks at the gate. And the man says, where's the money I gave you yesterday? Oh, sir, that was finished yesterday. I don't have anything. And this generous man gives him some money. But the beggar is back again next morning. Where's the money I gave you? It's finished, sir. I need some more for today. I'm not asking for tomorrow. Just for today. Blessed is the man who watches like that. Dear brothers and sisters, this is what it means to be poor in spirit. This is the meaning of blessed. Blessed, same thing here. Blessed is the man who waits like this. Jesus called it, blessed are the poor in spirit, Matthew 5, three. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And let me paraphrase it like this. Blessed is the man and wife who are poor in spirit. Their home will be like heaven. That's my paraphrase of Matthew 5, three. Two people who are husband and wife who are both poor in spirit, who are not aware of the need of the other person. Have you ever heard a beggar coming to your gate and saying, there's a beggar down there in Coxtown. Will you please give him some money? I've never heard that. They always come asking for themselves. Are you more aware of your wife's need, that beggar down in Coxtown? Or are you aware of your own need? Lord, it's me. There's an old song which says, it's not my brother, it's not my sister, it's me, Lord, standing in the need of prayer. It's me, I'm the needy one. Blessed is the man, that's poverty of spirit. The most important requirement for fellowship. Let me tell you from 52 years of experience as a believer and all the blunders and mistakes and stupid things I did in my younger days. And I could not build fellowship and to the place where it has come now, where fellowship has become glorious with my wife and with my children and with brothers and sisters. I'll tell you one thing. The most important requirement for fellowship is not doctrinal knowledge. It's not being in the good church. It's not listening to powerful sermons. It is being poor in spirit. If you have that and you don't have many of the other advantages, you can have wonderful fellowship with God and with one another. Blessed, blessed truth. And in the Amplified Bible, I think it says, blessed can be translated as to be envied. If you envy somebody, don't envy the rich man who's got a big house. Envy the man who's poor in spirit. That fellow's home is like heaven. If you envy the guy who's getting a big salary, you will aim for that. If you envy the man whose home is like heaven, you go to him and say, boy, how did you get this? How did you get this? How did you manage to make your garden like this? My garden's full of weeds. He'll tell you. Acknowledge your need. Go to God and say, Lord, I'm a needy person. I don't know about my wife's need, but I certainly am a needy person. I don't know about my husband's need, but I'm a needy person. Lord, please help me. Every day, come to God like that and watch at his gates. I'm telling you what I practice. I mean, I didn't practice in the early years of my life because nobody taught me. I never had a spiritual father, unfortunately. I longed to have one, somebody to whom I could be like a Timothy, but I never had one. I never could go to anyone in my younger days and ask them, how can I overcome sexual temptation? Nobody spoke about it. I had all these big lectures in our churches and I never had, so I had to learn a lot of things the hard way by trial and error, mostly by error, and then gradually discovering the right way, like putting your hand in the fire and burning it and then discovering, oh, fire burns. But through the years, I've learned some things. And I'll tell you this. Seek to be poor in spirit and go to God every day and say, Lord, I'm a needy person. Not only every day, I feel it's a constant attitude. When I get up to speak, even this morning, I said, Lord, I never felt so helpless. I don't know what to speak. I don't know what to say. I'm the neediest person sitting here, don't know what to say. How in the world can I instruct all these people on marriage? Please help me. I want to live my life like that till Jesus comes. It wasn't like that in my younger days. In those days, I was pretty confident. I knew the scriptures and I could prepare some wonderful message and impress people in different countries I traveled. It's not like that now. I have possessed heaven now. Those days, I didn't have heaven. I just had a lot of knowledge. And my home was not like heaven either. So I want to say to you, from my experience, blessed are the poor in spirit. Your home will be like heaven if you choose that way and care for your home just as much, that garden, as much as your workplace, which is another garden. You got two gardens, like Adam. The garden, his Eden garden and his wife's home garden. And you got your work garden and your home garden. Just make sure you don't neglect one over the other. Even the church, sometimes people get so involved in the church ministry that they neglect their family. You know, there was one of our churches in another town where the young brothers were so zealous. They were poor brothers, but they were very zealous and they would work in their factory and immediately after work, all these 15, 20 brothers would come together in the church hall. Every day in the evening, from work, they won't go home. They'll go to the church hall to have a time of prayer before going home. Wasn't that quite spiritual? No, I thought it was pretty stupid. So I told them, stop the prayer meeting, go home. You know, you're no business going to the church hall having a prayer meeting after your work. Your wife's been struggling the whole day, looking after the home and looking after your children and you're gonna have a prayer meeting? Rubbish. If you listen to God in that prayer meeting, the first thing God will tell you is back up and go home. But they don't hear it. They think the spiritual thing, religious people think the spiritual thing is to, oh, I have no time to help my wife, I've got to pray. We can be like that, you know, sometimes we can, you've heard me use the illustration of the morning quiet time, sit and read the Bible in the morning and you're trying to decipher some complicated verse in Hebrews or something and your wife is trying to figure out how to take care of the children and send them off to school and cook the food and you're trying, oh, God, speak to me. If you really heard God speak, he'd say close your Bible and go and help your wife. It doesn't matter if you don't understand that verse in Hebrews. But you don't hear it because we're deaf. We are religious, not spiritual. The religious thing to do is close your Bible and go and help your wife. You can read the Bible some other time when your wife is sleeping or get up a little early. We're so impractical in all these things. We think that's worldly. So, okay, coming back to this matter of manufacturer's instructions. You know, when you get these expensive gadgets, they say, before you do anything else, do this first of all. Okay, marriage. Before you do anything else, manufacturer's instructions, do this first of all. Genesis two, verse 24. Leave your father and mother. You do that. Number one, try and find a verse in the Bible before that about marriage. You won't find it. The number one manufacturer's instructions, before you do anything else, if you want to cleave to your wife, then leave. Before you cleave, you must leave. If you try to cleave without leaving, the cleaving will be imperfect. It'll come apart. You know, it's like laminate stuck on wood. Next morning, it's come apart. Hey, the glue wasn't good enough because they tried to cleave without leaving. And that is the fundamental problem in the vast majority of Indian marriages, including Christian marriages because most Christian husbands have got a non-Christian Hindu concept in their mind still, the joint family system where my mother is the boss of the kitchen. My wife has to listen to her. My father tells me how to run my home. I have to keep listening to him. My wife is a dumb girl. She's just got to produce children, sweep the house, and look after the food. She makes, cook the food. Well, you don't do the number one thing the manufacturer said and the machine blew up and you go back to the manufacturer with the machine, say, hey, this thing blew up. He'll ask you, did you do the first thing I told you to do? No, I ignored that. I just went ahead. Well, sir, that is the problem. We can't be responsible if you didn't follow our instructions. The wonderful thing about God is God says, okay, bring the gadget. I'll still fix it for you. Lifetime guarantee. Isn't that good? It's not for one year or two years. Come back, I'll fix it for you. But now that I've fixed it, please don't again ignore the, before you do everything else, do this. And there are clever wives who will say, but it says only about a man. Doesn't say the woman. Okay. I'll give you a verse also, sisters, since you're so scriptural. Psalm 45 and verse 10. Listen, oh daughter, give attention, incline your ear. This is, how many times does she have to say, listen, listen, give attention, pay your ear, incline your ear. Forget your people and your father's house. Then the king will desire your beauty. He's talking about marriage here. Earlier on it says, at your right hand, verse nine, stands the queen. And he's telling the queen, oh daughter, now that you're married to the king, forget about your father's house. Now what does that mean? Leave your father and mother, forget your father's house. It doesn't mean ignore them. Whenever you find a scripture which you can't understand, go to the dictionary. Like in English, you can't understand a word, you go to the dictionary. When in the Bible you can't understand a word, you go to Jesus, our spiritual dictionary. How did Jesus do it? You say, but Jesus never got married. That's right. But for him, marriage was, when he got into the ministry and he was married to the father in terms of ministry, that means he left his home at the age of 30, which is similar to you're leaving your home when you get married. So I say, how did Jesus do it as soon as he left his home? There I can learn an example of how I do it when I leave my home and get married. His mother comes with some good advice to him and he says, virtually, mind your own business, mom. I don't have anything to do with you now. What a word in the marriage in Cana. Woman. Now, I'm not saying you should talk to your mom like that, but. He was the son of God. But I'm trying to say, there's an altered relationship there. Till then it was mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mommy for 30 years. And all of a sudden, woman. That's the point I want to stress, an altered relationship once you leave your home and you're married. Man or woman? My hour has not yet come. I don't feel led to do that right now. I appreciate your advice, but I don't feel led to do that right now. Don't you think she got the shock of her life? It's not mentioned there, but I believe she got the shock of her life. 30 years disobedient son. If I tell him anything, he even drops the cricket bat and comes as soon as I call him. And whatever I do, he may be doing the most important thing. He drops it and does, yes, mom, what shall I do? Yes, mom, what shall I do? All of a sudden he says, woman, what am I going to do with you? And your mom may get the same shock and your dad may get the same shock. I mean, you say it in different words, but the same thing. Dad, I love you. I respect you. But you know, I've got to take my own decision now with my wife. You had your turn when you married mom. Now, please, this is my turn now. Let me do it. You need to do that with children too. When your grandparents tried to tell you how to bring up your children. Dad and mom, you had your turn bringing me up. Please let me have my turn now to bring up my children. Say gently. So often we cause problems by saying something, speak the truth, but speak it in love, it says. Speak the truth in love. But that's very important. Now, you see, my wife and I are now father-in-law, mother-in-law and grandparents. So I can say, I speak from experience. A little bit of experience in at least seven years. What it means to be a father-in-law and what it means to be a grandparent, a non-interfering grandparent and a non-interfering mother-in-law, father-in-law. It's a great education for us. When you see somebody messing up their life, say, well, praise the Lord, we're gonna pray for them. I pray that God will, if it's serious, of course, we'll advise them. But otherwise, they've got to learn. They've got to learn. I say, they'll learn slowly. If they come to me for advice, I'd be glad to help them. But I'll tell you, the average Indian parent is not like that. And I would not have been like that if I had grown up in a heathen society without knowing the Lord for so many years. So don't blame your parents. They have not had the instruction that we have had in this church for so many years. So you can't blame them, but you must not allow them to mess with your life. You know, they can't understand it. They say, we brought up our little boy for so many years. You know what all we suffered to bring you, to deliver you itself? At the time of delivery, it was so complicated. And you were born and you were such a problem as a kid, so naughty, running around. And we brought you up and educated you. You know how much money we sacrificed to educate you and took care of you. Do you know how many times we had to rush to the hospital to save your life? And now this girl you met yesterday, you're saying you're gonna live with her. That's what God says. What do you do? That's the only way to build a good marriage. And I can tell you this, it'll be more difficult if you have really good parents. Jesus had a wonderful mother. I don't think your mother was better than hers, than his. What a lot she sacrificed. She lived with the reproach all her life of becoming pregnant before getting married. Nobody understood that that was supernatural. She lived with that for Jesus' sake. To talk to such a mother? Woman, what do I to do with you? Learn from Jesus. Does it mean he didn't care for her? Hanging in agony on the cross, thinking of our sins and thinking of numerous things, he thought of his mother. You know, among the last few words on the cross, woman, I'm your eldest son. I have a responsibility. Even though I'm helpless right now, hanging on the cross, I wanna take care of you. I want John to look after you. What does that teach us? That's the balance that you care for your parents when they're old and helpless. Provide for them. Make sure there's someone to take care of them or take care of them yourself. Provide for their financial needs, physical needs, but don't let them interfere in the way you run your home, where you're gonna live, what job you're gonna do. Take their advice. Take the advice from godly elder brothers. Take the advice from anybody. But ultimately, it's you and your wife who need to pray and decide. That's how you cleave. You know, you and your wife and Jesus in the middle. You know that verse where two are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst, and the Lord has brought you together. Jesus is in the midst. Together with the Lord, you take your decisions. Consult everybody. In the multitude of counselors, Proverbs says there is safety. Your parents have got a lot of practical earthly wisdom. Consult them when you're buying a house or constructing a house, or maybe they have experience in many other areas. By all means, consult them, but don't let them decide for you. That's my point. Consult godly elders, but don't let them decide for you. You and your wife must decide. And that's why it's important, as far as possible, if you can afford it, to live in your own home after you get married. Now, in some cases, that is not possible. Many, many people in India are so poor that they cannot afford to move out of their parents' home when they get married. But I think all of you here, most of you anyway, can do that. You are luckier than I was. Because when I got married, I had left my naval job. If I was in the Navy, I could have had a mansion when I got married. But I'd quit my job to serve the Lord, and I was determined to work among poor villagers and students, and so my income was so little that I could not afford to rent a house. And I was compelled to take my newly married wife to my parents' home, and they were kind enough to give us one 10-foot-by-10-foot room there. That's where I lived, and for three years. Well, nearly, at least a couple of years. And I never knew why. Doesn't God take care of his servants? I'm a servant of the Lord. I was trying to honor God that I will not join some American organization and make money to get a rented house, no. But years later, many years later, God showed me the reason. He showed me that most of my ministry will be in the poor villages of India where we have most of our churches today. And many of those people cannot afford to move out of their homes when they get married. And so if you have to be a forerunner for them, I have to take you through the experiences that they go through so that you can preach to them, so that you won't be preaching theory. See, most of you, for example, if you go down to the villages in Tamil Nadu, you won't be able to preach to them how to live in your father's home after marriage because you've never done it. Well, that may not be your ministry, but it was my ministry. I had to go through that in order to be able to teach them. Now, you don't have to feel guilty about that. Don't go back and live in your parents now. That's, I'm not saying that. Each of us has a different ministry. But I say, in my case, God had to take me and my wife through that. It was more difficult for my wife, obviously. But it has given us greater compassion for people who are poor in India, who cannot afford house rent, and who have to live in more difficult circumstances. So God takes us through difficult circumstances. But now, if your situation is like that, then I say, you must still be detached from your parents. Even though I lived with my parents, I never allowed them to decide what my wife and I are gonna do. So you could live physically in a house and yet be emotionally detached. And that I was, by the grace of God. We decided where we're gonna go. One day, we decided we're gonna move from there to Bangalore. I didn't consult my parents about that. My wife and I prayed about it. And we moved to Bangalore. And that's how we moved here in 1972. And God had a wonderful ministry for us, which we never knew anything about then. I think if I had consulted my dad, it may have been a little different. So, now the opposite of that is, I was living with my parents for two years. But I was emotionally detached. I would not let them run my life. The opposite of that is, when many of you who are living in your own home, but your parents from remote control, you know this remote we have to control people at a long distance? Now move here, now change the channel. It's like that. From many miles away, there's electronic signals come telling you what to do next and where to move your father or her father or his father or mother and those remotes can be very powerful when accompanied with tears. Oh dear, are you gonna do that? And that changes the channel immediately when they press the remote with tears. Don't be moved by that. Let your remote be only in God's hand. He's the only one who can tell you where to go and what to do. That's a very important step because that'll unite you with your wife and some of your problems that you have with husband and wife may be because somebody else is controlling you remotely as to what to do. As I said, you can take advice, but not let them control you. Yeah, I wanna go on to just mentioning some things in scripture which are mentioned as something we have to do daily. And since the person we live with daily is our husband or wife, let me share this with you briefly. What we must do daily. First of all, Matthew chapter six. I see in the scriptures, there are at least four things the New Testament says we must do daily. It applies to all Christians, but I'm applying it to marriage. Matthew chapter six and verse 12. Forgive us our sins, our debts, as we forgive those who trespass against us, who commit some sin against us. How often should you pray that prayer? Daily. Because the previous verse says, give us this day our daily bread. And he said earlier in verse nine, pray in this way. Now, I'm not saying you gotta literally repeat that prayer, but every day, our attitude in our heart, even if you don't express it in words, must be, Father, give me this day food for my needs. That should be my attitude every single day. Pray then in this way. Which way? Give us this day our daily bread, and, and, not only daily bread, and today, this day, forgive us our sins, and, and, this day, as we have forgiven others. So what is the one thing you need to do every day? Daily. Forgive your partner. Every single day. Because brothers and sisters, whether you know it or not, we sin every single day. Now, that's a shock for a lot of people to hear. Brother Zach says we sin every day. I thought he preached victory over sin. There are two types of sins. Conscious sin and unconscious sin. We are aware only of 10%. Listen carefully. We are aware only of 10% of the wrong things we do every day. The unchrist-like things I do every day, I'm aware of only 10%. There are 90% of the unchrist-like things I do in a day, I'm not even aware of. Attitudes, motives, until God gives me light. And all our life, it'll be like this. But the unconscious part will become less and less and less and less if I deal with the conscious part. That is victory over sin. So when we speak about victory over sin, we're talking about victory in the conscious 10% of our life, that's all. That's why we need to pray every day, Lord, forgive me the sins I don't even know. I've committed sin. I don't even know it. When I get light on it, I can get rid of it. But until then, what should I do? Ask the Lord to forgive me. That's just like saying I'm still 90% unchrist-like in many areas. But that percentage becomes less and less as we grow. I'll explain it in a moment. See, if you take a cube of ice and put it in a glass of juice or something, you can see only 10% of that ice on top. That's your conscious life. 90% is hidden. There is ice, but you don't see it. So if you can take a knife and neatly slice out that top 10% and throw it away, that's dealing with conscious sin, getting victory over all known sin. What'll happen? All clever people, you know the answer. A little bit of that ice will come up. It won't remain underneath. It'll come up. And you'll see another 10%. You slice off that, what'll happen? Some more will come up. But if you never slice off that top 10%, then the remaining underneath remains the same size forever. So if you don't deal with conscious sin in your life, you'll always remain with no spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is to get more and more light on the part that is hidden. So that 90% becomes 80%, 70%, 60%, 50%. It should become less and less and less and less and less because we're dealing with conscious sin in our life. That is sanctification. That is spiritual growth. And that's how it must be in our marriage too. So I need to say, hey, I could have hurt my wife in numerous ways yesterday and I didn't even know it. I could have hurt my husband in so many ways and I didn't even know it because it's the part of the cube that's underneath. And so I need to have a humble attitude. Lord, forgive me. My wife is born with so many things. My husband is born with so many things. Maybe it's the tone of your voice, which you think is normal, but it's not normal. Maybe you came out of the military and you were, you have a tone of voice which says, right turn. She's not used to that type of thing. But for you, it's normal. Right turn means right turn, that's it. You don't wait two seconds till you turn right. So we all have our backgrounds and we're not conscious. That's why we need to ask the Lord, Lord, forgive me. You know, Paul says, the great apostle Paul, talking about his own life of victory over sin. You know how he describes it? Listen to this wonderful verse. 1 Corinthians in chapter four and verse four. Beautiful verse. 1 Corinthians four, verse four. I am not conscious of anything against myself. That means I am not committing any conscious sin. I'm not aware of any sin in my life, but that doesn't mean I'm acquitted because there's a whole lot of this ice cube under the water, which I don't see, which the Lord sees. He examines me. And one day, verse five, he will bring to light all those hidden things and disclose the wrong motives in men's hearts, et cetera. But till then, what shall I do? He tells us in 2 Corinthians seven and verse one. Let us cleanse ourselves, the last part of verse one. Let us cleanse ourselves, 2 Corinthians seven, one, from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness. Perfecting holiness means eliminating this ice cube completely in the fear of God. Yeah, you can never do it without the fear of God. So that's the first thing. Forgive. The Bible says, have you ever thought of this word? Sometimes we don't think of a word clearly. Let me surprise you. I always tell people, I'll give you a new Bible if you come to my meetings. Here's a verse which you may never understood. 1 John 1 seven. You think you know it, but I'll tell you, you don't know it. 1 John 1 seven. Do you really know this verse? First of all, he says in verse five, God is light and there's no darkness at all in him. Darkness is sin. Okay. If you say that your fellowship with him, verse six, and walk in darkness, you're telling a lie. If you're living in sin and you say your fellowship with God, you're a liar. Now, if we walk in the light, ah, that means I'm conscious of nothing against myself. I'm walking in the light. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me, but I'm walking in the light. All conscious sin confessed. Good conscience with God and with men. I have fellowship with God. And while I have fellowship with God, the blood of Jesus cleanses me from all sin. Hey, what's that sin? I thought I'm walking in fellowship with God without any conscious sin. Why do I need the blood of Jesus? Have you ever thought of that? That is to cleanse you from unconscious sin which you don't even know is there. As far as conscious sin is concerned, it's zero because you're walking in the light. You're not, in verse six, walking in darkness. You're walking in the light. But you still need the blood of Jesus to cleanse you from all that sin that you don't even see in you. Conscious sin is mentioned in verse nine. If we confess our, you cannot confess unconscious sin. Confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive you. Dear brothers and sisters, there's a lot of depth in scripture which we'll never discover if you read it casually. And a lot of people who accuse us of false doctrine is because they haven't read the Bible properly. Okay, forgiveness. Forgive others because God's forgiving you every day. That's why every day, as I told you, I pray, Lord, fill me with the Holy Spirit. Every day when I pray with my wife, I say, Lord, forgive us our sins. Jesus taught us to pray that. Forgive us our sins as we forgive others. This is the balanced teaching on victory over sin. Victory, total victory in the conscious area. As we deal with that, a little bit of that ice cube comes up. We get light on something else. We de-cleanse ourselves from that filthiness of the flesh and spirit. And the unconscious part, the uncrushed-like part becomes less and less and less and less. And people can see us. That we have become more gentle. We have become more humble. We've become more pure. Your wife and your husband can see a change in your life progressively if you take that humble attitude for asking God for forgiveness and always forgiving us. You know, an attitude of forgiving your wife, forgiving your husband, because there's such a lot of uncrushed-likeness in me which is coming out. Why do people use perfumes? To suppress all the bad smells that come out of our body. Perspiration brings a bad smell in. So many things, you know, and as we grow older, even our, we can't even control the breath in our mouth and the younger you can, but as your bodily system gets weaker and weaker, even your breath becomes bad very quickly when you get older. And, you know, so there's certain things we cannot control. And we, it's like that. There's something that comes forth from us. You can't control sweat and say it shouldn't come out. You can't control certain things. There are unconscious things that come forth that you don't even know is sin. You're thinking you're living a perfect life, but your wife is having to bear with you, or your husband's having to bear with you. It's not a question. Both may be equally spiritual, but you still have to bear with one another. If you remember that, forgiveness is very important. Every day. Secondly, the Bible says in the same Matthew chapter six, forgive us our sins and daily. And another thing we have to do every day is the next part of that verse. And, you know, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins this day as we have forgiven others this day and this day deliver us from evil. Victory over sin. That's the other thing we must pray for every day. Lord, today I want to live in victory. Please deliver me from all evil. Not I want to have victory, but you deliver me. Like I've said, you know, the Lord told me to say, don't say you got victory over sin. Say Jesus kept me from falling. Much better way to say it. It's the same thing, but it's got a different tone about it when you say I got victory over sin and you say Jesus kept me from falling, which is the truth. I tell you many, many situations. I can only say, Lord, it was definitely you who kept me from falling there. Otherwise I would have fallen. I would have fallen. If the Lord, I'll tell you this, if the Lord withdraws his grace from me this moment, I believe that any, I could fall into any sin. That's my conviction. I'll be like a branch cut off from the tree, dries up. I mean, you won't see the drying up immediately, but you wait a little, the branch is dry, dead. If you recognize that, you say, Lord, I'm helplessly dependent on you. Deliver me from evil. Lord, you got to keep me from falling today. I can't do it. That helpless dependence on God every day in our marriage relationship. Lord, if you don't help me, I may say some word that'll hurt my husband or wife today. Please deliver me from evil. Do you believe that's evil? To speak a rude word to your husband or wife? Do you believe it's evil to speak an angry word? Do you believe it's evil to be thoughtless about your husband or wife? Why not pray, Lord today, deliver me from evil. And not just me, deliver us. Help me and my wife. We are both equally helpless people. We need you. Help us. Why not do it together? Deliver us from evil. Please help us. That's a wonderful prayer to pray. And thirdly, another thing we got to do daily is Luke nine and verse 23. It says, if anyone wants to come after me, and I hope both of you, husband and wife, wants to go after the Lord. And if your partner does not want to go after the Lord, doesn't matter. If you want to go after the Lord, this is what you got to do. Ignore your partner. And you deny yourself, take up your cross daily, that is, die to yourself, and follow me. That's it. So people say, oh, brother Zach, what, my wife is not interested? Doesn't matter, brother. My husband is not interested. Doesn't matter, sister. You deny yourself. You die to yourself. You follow Jesus. But then you say, if I keep dying to myself, denying myself, my partner will take advantage of me. No, he won't. Or she won't. 1 Corinthians 10, 13 says, God will not allow you to be tested beyond your ability. 1 Corinthians 10, 13. God will never allow you to be tested beyond your ability. If you die to yourself, you won't lose the headship of the house, brother, sister, dear brother. The best husband, head of the house, is the one who dies to himself every day. That means he dies to his rights and his reputation. He doesn't give up the headship of his house. Why doesn't he give up headship of the house? Because Almighty God has told him to be the head of his house. If I give up headship of my house for the sake of peace in my home, I say, okay, darling, you do it your way. I am disobeying God, who has told me to be the head of my house. I'm willing to die to myself, but I'm not gonna willing to give up headship of my house because that's asking me to not die to myself. If I seek peace at home at the cost of giving up headship in the house, I'm not dying to myself. I'm doing what I want for the sake of peace in my home. And God says, no, you gotta be the head of your house. So this is something you have to learn from Jesus. How was he the leader of his disciples? He once told his disciples, you call me Lord and Master, and so I am. Have you read that word? You call me Lord and Master in John 13, and so I am. I can turn to my wife and say, you call me the head of the house, and so I am. But, you know what he said after that? But see, I'm washing your feet. That is the balance. To be the head, and yet to be a servant. To change your children's diapers, or wash their bottom, or give them a bath. That's not the wife's job. It's the job of both parents. She didn't produce that kid herself. I hope you know that. The responsibility is for both. So, be the head of your home, and don't think that any job you do in the home is too degrading for the head of the home. There, your concept may have come from heathen culture, and not from Jesus Christ. And that's where we gotta change our way of thinking. So what does it mean to die to myself? This is what it means, to die to myself. And number four, it means many other things, but there's one thing. Number four is chapter three, Hebrews 3, 13. Every day, encourage one another. Encourage one another every single day. This is also in married life. There's a great need to encourage one another. You know, just a word, like, that's a great job you did. Is it very difficult to say it to your wife or husband? Or, thank you, darling, for working so hard today and coming back, earning money for our home. Thank you for looking after the children, taking care of the home. We never say it because we don't think of it. I'm not saying that you have to say that every day. The attitude is more important. Sometimes words mean nothing, but an attitude that shows that you're thankful. Even if you don't say it, an attitude of thankfulness. Every time your wife brings you a cup of tea, an attitude, even if you don't say it, attitude, yeah, I'm grateful. I don't take that as my right. And thankfulness, attitude for everything your wife does, everything your husband does. An attitude is encouraging. And if you don't know what to say, you know what you should do? Smile. Smile. That's an easy way to encourage. I don't know what to say today, so I just smile at my wife. When he comes back from work, he's come back tired from work, and you look at him like, what happened? You look at him seriously. Next day, he comes from work and says, I wonder what face my wife is gonna have today when I come back home. Even if you don't know what to say, smile. That's a great way of encouraging. I'll tell you that, honestly. Because at least he knows she's at peace with me today. Or he's at peace with me. It makes a lot of difference. The Lord turned and looked at Peter, saying, nevermind. When your wife makes a mistake, look at her like the Lord turned and looked at Peter, and nevermind. We can, it's okay. You can come back, it's okay. Particularly when she has broken something very expensive. You must hug her and say, these earthly things, they'll all perish. But you and I, we're gonna be together forever. Forget it. If you don't have it, don't have it. It's gone. It's not necessary for life. Sometimes we get so disturbed when something valuable is broken at home. I've taught myself through the years not to be disturbed one bit. If something goes wrong, it goes wrong. If something packs up, it packs up. All things on earth are corruptible and will get spoiled. I'm not gonna ruin my day or my married life because of some earthly thing. Man lived for thousands of years without those gadgets that you think are so essential for life. They pack up, they pack up. If you can afford to get another one, get another one. If you cannot afford to get another one, live without it. Like Adam and Eve lived without washing machines and all types of things. So dear brothers and sisters, may you all have a very extremely happy marriage and at least if you can do the bare minimum, smile at each other, you'll have a great marriage. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we bow before you, we really want godly homes in this church and in every church. And I pray you'll help us, Lord, in those questions which probably were not answered. Or other questions that can come up. We thank you that you've given us the Holy Spirit and many here have godly elder brothers to guide them. Help us to be wise, to build our houses, homes with wisdom. Not to compare ourselves with others, but to follow the examples of godly couples so that we can follow in their footsteps also. Thank you, Father. We believe you'll help us because this is your heart's desire for all the couples sitting here to build godly homes. We thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.