In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of teaching and living out the principles of God's word. He acknowledges his own failures but believes that God will help him grow and mature in his faith. The speaker prays for soft hearts and a strong desire to obey God's commands. He highlights the need to focus on Christ and points out the danger of relying on human wisdom rather than Scripture. The sermon concludes with a reminder to love others as ourselves and to prioritize repentance and growth in our daily lives.

I started becoming more and more concerned about family, not just because of my family, but one day I was getting ready to do a sermon on missions, people wanted me to preach on missions, and I started going down the list and I said, okay, what part, I thought I'd ask myself this and everyone else, what part of the gospel, what part of your gospel ought to be exported to another country and what part ought to be quarantined? And then I said, okay, what part of your piety, your godliness, would you want exported to another country or would you want it quarantined? Okay, your relationship with your wife, would you really want that exported to another country or should it be quarantined? I mean, there are people that say that. And that's when I began to understand, okay, what part, you want, everybody talks about missions, what part of your life ought to be exported and what part ought to be fixed locally. And the exported part, well, they export. But it's a process. They just think that they need to stop this. This is crazy. I don't need to be here because none of you can even do any of this without literally selling your homes and quitting your jobs. I'm not saying that people can't be successful. I'm just saying that they were, you know, the rat race. They were, 16 out, bringing in big bucks just to keep their head above water. You know, it's insane. I said, you can't even take, you know, you couldn't take a couple evenings out for your children to save your life. See, we live in a world that thinks they're entitled. So if you've got one guy who busted his hind in all his life, in high school, in college, and goes off to study some sort of medicine and this and that, he's working 75 hours a week, 85 hours a week, and he's doing all this, he comes out to the end of the tunnel, and he may be a prosperous man. The problem is the guy who barely graduates from high school and gets a job in the oil field or gets a job in a factory somewhere thinks he ought to be living the same way. And it's insane. But you think about it. You go out to some guy who's never really strove to be anything, and you ask him, and he'll say, yeah. I mean, something's wrong with the world. I should have what that guy has. And that's one of the greatest problems. You see, the Bible is not against wealth. The Bible is if you have to break biblical principles to get it. I mean, if we're sitting here right now in Canada or America, unless you're on a reservation somewhere, you are wealthy. I don't care who you are sitting in this room. You are wealthy. And so the key is not to all of us sell everything we have and go live. The key is to be good stewards of what we have received, and then also not to lower ourselves to third world standards, but to teach godly principles to the third world that their standards might go up. See, that's one missionary has written. And what he's talking about is like Job or Abraham. I mean, no one came to Job's house hungry or orphaned or anything. He didn't take care of them. Same way with Abraham. So it's not about, you know, if you're wealthy, you're somehow in sin. But if you have stuff you can't afford, that you walk no longer as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind. And then he goes on. They become callous, giving themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. And then he says, and here's the key. But you did not learn Christ in this way. If indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him just as the truth is in Jesus. He's not pointing them to the law. He's not even pointing them to biblical principles. He's pointing them to Christ. Because let's just look at it. Okay, giving themselves over to sensuality. If we just took serious, okay. How many problems would that eliminate? I mean, just think about it. And then it says the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. It covers most of it. Yeah, it covers it. And he says, and then he goes on to lay aside the old self, be renewed in the mind and put on the new self. But my favorite thing this week while I was reading, you did not learn Christ in this way if indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him just as the truth is in Jesus. You talk about redundant. It's just pointing them to Christ, pointing them. And I mean, even like a great example of this in the negative. And this may offend some of you. Some of the stuff, the principles that he pulls out, some of it's wonderful. Some of it is pure inference. It's not scripture. It's based upon his inferences that he's made into scripture. But the whole point is when you meet a Gotharite, you need a person that's full of principles. It's all about principles and principles of character and this and that. But you start talking to you. You really don't. It's all principle. These principles. That's just not the way it is. You see, the Puritans were not all of them. Some of them were mistaken because they said the law leads us to Christ to be justified. And Christ sends us back to the law to be sanctified. That is absurd. Now, the law leads us to Christ. When we see we can't keep the law, we go to Christ. He doesn't take us back to the law to learn how to be godly. He says, look at me. There's nothing wrong with the law. The law is perfect and holy. But I can nail you to a wall if you're going to tell me the law is a greater revelation of what it's like to be righteous. That's why if you look through the scriptures, it's be led of the spirit, follow the spirit, hear the spirit. Do not grieve the spirit. Do not offend the spirit. Do not quench the spirit. You see, it's all about just following this person. And let's just face it. If a guy and a girl got together and they knew nothing about principles. But they listened to Jesus. It would be okay. It would be okay. You know, I can't honor mine. So, you know, it's good to work in that realm. You know, living the gospel. You know, in Ephesians, another thing that's most beautiful, you know, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Every marital fight in the world is found right there. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and slander be put away from you. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other. Isn't it amazing? He never tells us that the way our relationships are going to work is by both of us being perfect. He says the way our relationships are going to work is by both of us forgiving each other. Just as God and Christ also as beloved children. Just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us and offering a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. It's just... If we're loving one another... You see, in the New Covenant, love isn't like one of the characteristics you need to have. Love isn't even the supreme characteristic of what you need to have. Love is everything. And you say, well, that's kind of not defined very well though. In this we know Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So it's constantly putting the other person first. First. First. It's constantly forgiving as Christ forgave you. I mean, just think about that. I mean, love does not steal a neighbor's wife. Love doesn't lie. Everything you do is a lie. Every sin you commit is a lack of love. It's self-love. Who literally has written, let's say, a 2,000 page systematic theology. He knows as much as anybody on the planet. Correct theology. You have a guy beside him on the day of judgment who is illiterate, but knew how to love his wife. But one is approved over the other. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands maybe, of hours, studying scripture and condensing truth and systematizing. This person can't read. It's the royal law. He's kept the laws, kept all the commandments. You were just constantly so preoccupied with just bailing in one area, love. I'm always considering how people feel condemned and unable to go ahead because of not knowing the next step. We just quoted in Ephesians, well, it's always coming back to Christ, always coming back to Christ. It's like, as you read it, I just felt hope. I just felt, I can do this. I have the hope from hearing that. A bunch of rules really is full of condemnation. Just think about it. If all you're supposed to do is follow him, and every time you fail to follow him, all you're supposed to do is run to him believing that he will forgive you and start all over again. That's it. But see, the devil, the moment you sin, the devil is basically like in hockey. You're going into the penalty box. Don't you even think about coming to God right now. You know, like a guy who has sin in a certain area in his life, it's like he hates it, but every day he's like doing it, doing it, doing it. He hates it, still hates it, and he just keeps going away from God. And he thinks that if he goes to Christ and asks for forgiveness, it's hypocrisy because he hasn't truly repented. That's a lie. You constantly go back to Christ, constantly go back to Christ, constantly go back to Christ. And if the devil were to appear in your room and say, you're just a hypocrite, you'd go, okay, and then run back to Christ. I mean, just nothing should keep you from Christ. There's a teaching out there that kind of says, yes, but, yes, but, and yet he reconciled all things to himself. There's nothing that's in the way of a clear path back to Christ, completely. The yes, but comes from the fact that our gospel is so poor, that there are so many people that are in the church that aren't really Christian, that live and sin all the time, and really don't care, and then go back to Jesus and ask for forgiveness. And not really to Jesus, they just go through some evangelical rite. Now, the true Christians look at that and they say, I don't want to be like that. And so when they sin, they put themselves in a penalty box. They make themselves something. What they realize is there is a vast difference between that carnal church member who is sinning all the time, and just nonchalant, doesn't even care. He doesn't even care. Just laughs, well, Jesus, forgive me. There's a great difference between that person and a person who may be sinning and have cords of sin wrapped around their neck and they're hating it. But they just can't seem to set themselves free from it. There's a big difference between those two people. You know, the guy who, and this happens all the time, every Saturday night all the youth are out, tailgate party, getting drunk and fornicating, and go to church on Sunday, just in their best ropers and wranglers and just having a good time. Jesus is grace. Well, a Christian could fall in amongst that, but on Sunday morning, you got to pour him out of the car. All you have to ask yourself is, not am I able to conquer my sin, not am I able to set myself free from this. The only thing you have to ask yourself is do I have a broken contrite spirit? When I sin, does it hurt me? Do I hate it? Then you know you're okay. See, it magnifies how great he is. I mean, he's seven times seven. Seventy times seven. He just keeps going. When you think that lovelessness is the greatest sin you can commit, it's the root of all sin, lovelessness. All right? Not fornication. Fornication is a result. Now, I want you to think about it. You do lovelessness every day of your life. Every day of your life, you do not love God as he ought to be loved, and you do not love others as God has commanded you to. So when you look at it that way, you go, wow, yesterday when I got mad at somebody at work and told them off, the great sin that's going to set me back, because the greatest sin is lovelessness, and I commit that every day. But I think you're right that we should have, that it needs to be Christ-saturated, not principle-saturated, because I've noticed here in Canada, not so much in, I don't know this area as well, but when I was in British Columbia, there was so much darkness and so much waywardness in the church that many of the people who were really serious about Christ became very principle- and law-driven, very legalistic, and very kind of hard. And that's not what we want to put forth, the gospel, you know, by God's grace. It's almost like we know we're in it for the long haul, and then we almost feel like, well, therefore we get away with things. You know what I'm saying? It's like a guy who thought, if I don't do this, my wife will leave me. Well, I know my wife, by the grace of God, is not going to leave me, because she's so trustworthy that you don't have to wash your feet. Okay, so we've got all these, you know, we know we're not leaving each other, and we know we're going to do certain things in our home, and we know that our finances are going to be a certain way, and we know we're going to... Is there a fragrance of Christ? Is there love and joy, peace and righteousness in the Holy Spirit? Is there the fruit of the Spirit in our home? And if you say, well, there is between us and our kids, but not between us as husband and wife, then I've got to call you a deceiver. You know, that love, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, goodness, self-control, all that, it's something that really... And here's the thing, if you look at your kid, like when Evan today picks up a gun for the first time, not the first time shooting one, but picks one up for the first time to shoot at an animal, and he nails the thing right in the head twice, you know? And there's like a little... I look at my boys, and there's like a twinkle in my eye. I look at my little Roey, and there's a twinkle in my eye. And I'm sure all of you say the same thing when you look at your kids. Here's the question. Is there a greater twinkle in your eye when you look at... That's really got to be... And that's the thing that... It's an area where we really need to work. And this is work, guys. This is not... Don't think it's going to happen. That's another thing we get on. You know, we're so like... Okay, we know our kids need this help, but it's almost like I think at times Chado looks at me and goes, well, you know, I don't need to help Paul with his discipleship. You know what I mean? I don't need to teach Paul the Bible. And I'm like, well, Chado is independent and strong, and then days go by and weeks go by, and you haven't ministered to one another. You're pouring your life into your children, her homeschooling, teaching them stuff about the Bible, me teaching them at night. But you totally neglect each other. And it's just not going to work. You can't put the ones before the others. And that's probably our greatest sin. And especially when you have a wife that's strong. Then that's going to be your sin, is neglecting her. You know, praying with her, reading the Word with her. I think it was Luke Priolo did this, and it was amazing. He said, look, I've done this every time when I've sat in a room with godly men. He said, not wayward dads, but godly men. And he'll take like a blackboard. He'll put a line like this, and a line down the middle. And he'll put wife here, and children here. And then he'll ask the men, I want you to take the number 10, how much you invest in your children. Take the number 10. I've divided 5-5, 4-6, 7-3, whichever. He said the best average he has ever gotten is 3-7. 3 for the wife, 7 for the husband. It should be just the opposite. Do you see that? I mean, I don't know. You guys might think I'm nuts, but that tears me up. We expect our wives just to go for it. But they're not made to do that. They're not made to do that by themselves. They're not made to do it. Even though they may be more intelligent, even though they may be more spiritual, they are not meant to do that by themselves. They are to grow from their husband. That's convicting, isn't it? There is a sense in which, well, we see this in Ephesians. Because we don't want to just be saying stuff that just sounds good, but isn't really biblical. Look what it says. It says, first of all, Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her. So how's the husband supposed to love his wife and lay down his life? It doesn't mean he does everything his wife wants him to. It means he makes decisions regarding his wife and his family that's going to lead to her sanctification. Okay? So sometimes he's going to say no. He's always giving. He's always giving himself. He never makes decisions based on what's best for him or what's best for his family. But his decisions are based on what will sanctify my wife. Then it says, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word. So many men will take this and say, I need to teach my wife the Word. Well, that's true. But in this context, look what it says, cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word. Usually in this type of language, the Word is referring to the Gospel. You're washing her in the Gospel. Not necessarily principles from Proverbs 31. Now, how do you wash your wife in the Gospel? Well, you do it by teaching her the Gospel, for sure. But you do it by demonstrating the Gospel. A guy who may be good to come up here, Norm Wakefield, man, life. I was with him in a conference in Wisconsin, Minnesota or somewhere. I don't know where it was. And he said, when I come home from preaching, as a man, I'm expecting my wife and even my family to say to themselves, you know, the hero's coming home. The guy who's been out there working, fighting God's battles, everything. And he goes, I kind of have this in my mind, you know. They ought to be meeting me at the door, putting slippers on my feet, and not saying anything to me other than trying to calm and nurture me. He goes, I'm beat up. He goes, but I can always expect. He says, even though my wife is godly and everything, she's going to meet me at the door? She's hardly going to ask me how it went? Or if she did, even before I can answer, she's going to start telling me all the problems she's had at home, all the things that are going on. And he goes, immediately, it makes me mad. And he said, until I learned. God could have given my wife at that moment grace to minister to me. He said, he could. He could have done that. He didn't. Why? God is setting me up. He's giving me an opportunity to be like Jesus toward my wife. To walk in that door, even though I'm wore out totally, but not expecting to get anything from her. And he says, look, when you look at it that way, and you say, okay, no excuses now. She doesn't meet me at the door. She bombards me with problems and all these different things. It is my opportunity to be like Jesus. Man, when he said that, it just killed me. Because he just described me. And I think other men, you know, we come in and we're tired, we're wore out and everything else, and we think that ought to happen, and it doesn't happen. But many times, it's God not wanting it to happen. And then it says, so washing of water with the Word is... Remember how I shared how our wives can break our hearts if they'll just have a gentle and quiet spirit? If we're acting like jerks, and they respond to us by just a gentle and peaceable and quiet and respectful spirit, it'll kill us. We'll go out and beat our heads with a tuba board. We'll feel so bad. Well, it's the same way. If our wives, you know, are having their bad day and all that other kind of stuff, but we act like Christ toward them, then that's washing them in the Gospel. They're actually seeing. And then he goes on, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. He is working to present his wife to him in a way that's pleasing to him. And here's the question. You want your wife to be a certain way. How many countless thousands of hours have you invested in your wife so that she would be that? I failed. So, might as well get it out in the open. Okay, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much devotion time around the table, wife included, matters versus hands-on matters? Well, when we get to Deuteronomy 6, we see it's hands-on. We do that. And we can extrapolate from there that it ought to be the same with the wife, which I think may be your meaning, just as we live throughout the day. Yeah, I think that's a big part, but I've never seen anybody who really learned how to pray who just said they prayed as they went. You know, I pray as I go. I've never seen anybody develop into a great prayer warrior that way. It's always through time of set prayer. I think that the same can be said for husband and wife. This is a conscientious washing the wife in the Word, and we're going to see that in a minute also. When we disciple a person, we say, you know, the church needs to be doing more discipleship one-on-one, teaching that person, investing in that person. If anybody on the planet is going to feel neglected, it's going to be a wife. That can be avoided. I mean, if we spent two times a week just sitting down with our wives, drinking coffee or whatever, and with the Bibles open, and listening to her and teaching. So I do believe that there is the teaching in the midst that is as we're going throughout the day, but there's also... Just think about it for a moment. Most men who work outside of the home or conversing with other men or doing all kinds of things, our wives, many of them who are homeschooling, it's all day homeschooling, home, this, that, you know, Bob and Larry, VeggieTales. I mean, they're about out of their mind. You know, they want to be able to... They married us to fellowship with us. They married us to be with us. And sometimes it's good for the family to be together, but our wives need time with just us. Just us. I know some guys go out on dates, you know, every two weeks, things like that. But when Chardo and I have done it, the best times have been just sitting down before the kids get up or before they go to bed, and just talking. Wives were also made... Think about the wife in the role of the church. The church, when she's truly walking with Christ, she talks to Christ. She wants to commune with Christ. She wants to hear from Christ. An intimacy. That same intimacy is what we need with our wives. If you also look, the reason why you married her, and she married you, I mean, she probably had seen better looking guys and all kinds of things, but when she saw you, something clicked. It was more than just your pretty face. There was something there. There was a fellowship. There was communion. There was a getting along. But after we get married, that kind of seems to get set aside. And kids replace it. And then it says here, So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh. And what he's basically saying here is, no sane person hates his own flesh. No sane person bites himself. There are people like that. They have this thing in which they literally try to rip their flesh off their bones and bite their tongues out of their heads and everything else, but we don't call them sane. And he's saying, in the same way, it's just as much insanity to devour your wife or to not seek her prosperity. Like, if I say, okay, I'm going to really start working out, and I am going to make sure that these two legs are as strong as they can be, and this arm and this chest and these shoulders and my neck and my lower back and everything, and I'm going to do nothing for this arm. You know, it just turns into a freakish sort of thing. In the same way, I'm going to invest time in my kids, I'm going to invest time here and everything, but even if you say you want to invest in your children, you know that, come on, your wife is going to be with your children probably more than you are. So you need to invest in her. But here's the part that I dearly love. It says, No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church. Now, notice, if you see over in Ephesians 4, it says to do this. It says, lay aside the old self, then be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self. It never tells you to lay aside a vice, and that's all. It always says lay aside a vice and adopt a virtue. In the same way, he's doing the same thing here. No one ever hated his own flesh. Don't hate your wife, your own flesh, but it's not good just to be... Let's say you're not tearing your wife to pieces. And so many times we say that's good enough. I think because the world... Marriages, for the most part, at least, like 65% of all marriages, the husband and wives are killing one another. They're eating one another. They end up in a divorce. So when we as Christian men say, well, you know, I'm not tearing my wife apart, we think, okay, I'm doing a good job. But look what he says. No. Once you've got to the point where you're not hating, if you're not hating, if you're not tearing apart, that's not even half the job. Now, here's the second half. Nourish and cherish it just as Christ does the church. Now, the word nourish, if you go over to 1 Timothy, we can see this idea of a person nourishing. Listen to what it says. In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, as is constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine, which you have been following. The nourishment here comes from sound doctrine and the words of faith. That's 1 Timothy 4, 6. And the same basic word is used here, but nourishes, but nourishes. And then, let's see, I don't know if I can find the text. Now, look at this. He says, and cherishes, the word means to warm, like the word is often used of a mother breastfeeding. Okay? There's nothing considered more tender or cherishing than a mother breastfeeding her child. Alright, so he says, not only should we nourish our wives, and in 1 Timothy 4, it's with the word and sound doctrine, but also to cherish our wives and he says here, but we prove to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. And there's a sense in which a husband should have this tenderness that a nursing mother has for her own children. He should have that toward his wife. Now think, we always think, don't we, that the closest relationship is a mother and her child. But the mother and child is supposed to be a result, and she's supposed to learn how to love her children by the way her husband loves her. Guys, that's bad. Think about that. Isn't it kind of warped that in our society the mother is just, she's the center of what love's supposed to look like? In the scriptures, it's the husband. Now, go to the Christ. Does the scriptures brag about the bride's love for Christ? No, Christ's love for the bride. As a matter of fact, if someone says, if a guy comes to me and says, my wife doesn't love me, and there can be a lot of problems with his wife, but we ought to keep in mind this. Not that we love Christ, but that he loved us. And the reason why we love Christ is because he loved us. His love always precedes. Also, Albert Barnes on this passage, but we prove to be a nursing mother, be gentle among you. And he goes on, look what he says. Nor did we seek glory from men, neither from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority. Now, this is real important. Put husband in there instead of apostle. And put a husband talking to his wife, and he says something like this. Look, I could have asserted my authority as a husband, but instead of manipulating you by my authority, I prove to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. I heard one guy say, and Charles pointed this out a couple of times, and it's been very good, is that notice when it says that wives are to submit to their husbands, it doesn't say that husbands are to tell their wives to submit. God tells the wives to submit. And this one man, he said, if you have to tell your wife to submit, you've already lost the battle. And you know, there's some balance in that because it is the Scriptures though, and you may have to go to your wife and say, look at what this says. But, you know, we always play that submit card. At least I do. And so, now after he does this, no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother. What's the reason a man leaves his father and mother? To portray Christ. By taking upon a bride. Right? Now, your wife's probably more deserving than you are, but let's look at Christ. He left heaven to take for himself a bride that was filthy, that was beneath him, and that he has to work with for centuries to cleanse and to make right. Okay? Now, you probably married a wife who was probably above you, but not perfect, and we're all upset because... And yet he's investing all his omnipotence, 24 hours a day, to change his bride, and we're basically not doing a whole lot, and he's a perfect example, and we're not. I mean, when you start looking at, okay, it's just all about Christ, it's really intimidating. I wish we could go back to the law. It would be a lot easier. Um... It says, This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also has to love his own wife, even as himself. You know? And it's so much easier to do with our children, like those groundhogs running around, or those gophers or whatever today. You know? There was part of me that just wanted to grab a gun and start shooting like a crazy. You know? You're out hunting or something, and your son's there, and there's something in you that says, oh man, I just want to start shooting these things. This is fun. But then you put that gun back in their hands, and they shoot, and you get this wonderful delight when you see what they do. Alright? That should be our wives, more than even our children. And I'm saying this because, you know, I just failed so many times. So many times. But every time I hear myself say these things, I realize it's right. It really is right. And I do believe, and I think we all ought to believe, I do believe I'm going to get there. My wife may be 93 when I get there, but I mean, he who began a good work will finish it. So these are the types of things that we need to teach. Any last questions? If you're tired, you can go to bed. Well, I have another child question. We've been teaching our kids not to retaliate, I guess, when other kids are doing something that's not correct to them. But yet, when it almost becomes more of a bullying situation, if you understand what I'm saying with that, I'm sure there's a fine line there sometimes too, but for a son, we're finding that now, he's going to be five at the end of this month. I don't know. Is there a proper time to kind of stand up for yourself? Yeah. You have that book, Future Men, isn't it, child? And that book has two boys wrestling on the front of it because, you know, we've allowed the feminization of our boys. You know, a parent keeps coming to me, and his son keeps telling on my son. So the parent kept coming to me, and I said, look, here are some of the options, and I know that you have good theology. One is, your son is absolutely perfect and has no part in all this. This is my boy every time. Now, that boy is like two years or three years older than my son. And I said, do you honestly believe that if there's trouble between them each time, it's my son's fault? He goes, well, I guess not. And I go, why don't you tell your boys to stop paddling and just deal with the problem? He's old enough. And I said, if they end up duking it out, let them duke it out a bit. We'll separate them before it gets to the hospital stage. You know, Teddy wrote another story where they tell in this book a story about a Sunday school teacher. All the kids come in, and this one boy doesn't come in. He comes in late for Sunday school. He's kind of a little boy, and his hair is all messed up, and he's got dirt on his face, and his clothes are all shirts pulled out. The Sunday school teacher said, boy, what happened? Why did you show up late? He said, I got in a fight. The Sunday school teacher said, well, why did you get in a fight? He said, that big boy over there was picking on these little girls. And the Sunday school teacher said, well, he pulled out a coin, gave it to the boy, and said, good job. Like that. And they dismissed the Sunday school teacher for doing that. That was Teddy Roosevelt. They dismissed him for doing that. We have to be very careful. Christ is not the... Christ is against the John Wayne mentality, the don't tread on me. But at the same time, we can't raise a group of boys who are just going to also let people just trounce them. Because, I mean, then what does that mean? I mean, we have to protect borders. I'm not going to let someone trounce my family. You know, this last winter, I was real proud of Ian. Ian and I and Evan went to... There's this hill right by our house, and we got our sleds, and we were going there. And these three kids showed up, two girls and this boy that was a lot bigger than Ian. And the boy wasn't a bad kid, it's just no one ever taught him how to be with a girl. And this girl was obviously a friend of his sister's who was also there, and he pushed her down. Now, it was in part planned, but it was pretty rough. And Ian automatically, he let go of his sled, and he got in between them. And he goes, you don't do that to a girl. Like that. And I was just backing off then, and I said, okay, let's see you get your spurs here, buddy, because he's going to pound you. But it was necessary. The kid didn't pound us. The kid was kind of in shock, didn't know what to do. He'd never heard of anybody defending him. So then I went over there, and I said, young man, I've been watching you. He said, you're a good boy. And he said, I can't. I said, you've got some nobility about you. He said, well, let me teach you something. And I just sat there, and taught him some things. You know, it's these dads. They don't teach their kids anything. But don't let your boy just get trounced. I mean, it shouldn't happen. Would you add anything to that, Charles? I mean, he's going to stand up at times. Well, he's very ready to stand up. So that's the fine line, I guess. That's almost part of the issue. Yeah. He's ready for more, I think. Yeah. If he's the starter of something, you need to really get on to him about it. Really, one of the things I do with my boys is watch their mouth. The declarations. They're grapplers. You know, they're not going to smack somebody. I say, son, we learned this wrestling. You get them in a hold, throw them on the ground, and just preach to them for 20 minutes. Just pin them down. They can't do anything. Mixed martial artists for Jesus type stuff. Another thing for your boys, and you guys won't have this problem as much as where I live, but now about 20 years or so of homeschooling, a lot of homeschoolers have realized they've raised a bunch of boys who they kind of call jellyfish or jelly beans. And what it means is, think about it. My high school was really not a good school. My grade school wasn't a good school. And you got in there and you either got pecked to death or you learned to stand up or get clever or something because you were going to get messed around. And then you played football, basketball, something, it's the same way. When you've got these homeschool boys, and not all of us live in Athabasca, so you're not taking your boys out and you've got an elk and you're not doing all this stuff, what happens? They're homeschooled. They're taught by their mom. They're never getting into conflicts. They're never having to defend. They're never having to take care of themselves. They're never in a scary situation. And they're just soft. But see, here's the thing. You know, boys, like I'm a total child, hardly ever tearing something up, you know. They're boys. They're not girls. I understand what they're doing. They've got to do this. This is in them. And that is why if you can get your sons out with you, you know, that's why I have my sons in karate and wrestling. Like, they're going to start sparring pretty soon. The other day, I had the pads on and I was letting Ian kick me. And I just, I walloped him. I thought, you're going to... And it kind of shocked him. He goes, Dad, that hurt. I said, welcome to the family. Some guy's going to pound you when you get in that ring, you know. But they need to know that you can't turn them into these little boys. You know, that are just... Just like when Matt and Josh had a fistfight and they kissed and Ashley just left them. No, just send them up. Send them up. And I'm like, stop that right now. Put your hands in. And Josh would never fight. He didn't want me to give him a crack. All he wanted to do is I was like, what are you guys doing? Because they're like, what are we doing? I'm like, Molly, what are you doing? She's over there. But get them, you know. You guys, you know, with me, you know, I'm struggling, you know, getting them kayak and trying to get them in karate. But, you know, with my life and everything, I'm just not... I mean, it's really something if you can toughen these boys up. You need to, you know. The good thing, I mean, like, we would work cattle. You know, I'd be out there until, you know, my mom's threatening to divorce my dad. I'm eight years old. I've got frostbite on my feet, you know, or we're cutting lumber. We're cutting wood and I got my hands down there at the exhaust of the truck trying to keep my hands from falling off, you know, carrying a cap on my back in two feet of snow. But those are the kind of things that make you something. You protect your sons from that kind of stuff and you're going to hurt them. And when they're out, that's why I like hunting and stuff because they get out there, it's cold in that tree stand or they're having to gut that stinking animal, you know, and it's five degrees and you stick your hand in there and it's okay when it's warm inside and they're trying to cut all that stuff out but when you pull it back out it's freezing to death. That helps, really. And, you know, have them make their beds. Have them clean up after themselves, you know. Also maintain a balance between character and a lot of these things, you know, anybody can laugh if they want. I mean, I've got a kid that just turned ten. What kind of expert am I? But because I'm so afraid, I have two who are very successful fathers who've done great jobs and I'm not called upon to reinvent the wheel. I'm so scared of myself because I really didn't have any godly bringing up, you know, but balance the character with the intellect. Some parents, like I have a tendency more to be, you know, I wanted them to be scholars. Chato has a tendency more to, I want them to know Christ and have character. The fact is, both those things are important. You know, I was talking to Vody one day and he goes, look, we're not going to change the world by raising, by only raising people who can work on a farm in Kansas. We need both. We need to do both. Some of our greatest fathers of this country, of the United States, were farmer scholars. We need both those things. You know, if my boys want to work with me or they want to start their own business, if it's an organic farm, I'll be happy, but I also want them, when they leave my home, that if they want to pursue medicine or what else, that they're going to be able to do it. You know, I want both of those things and it's a hard balance. It really is. But we can't just, we can't take them out of the world. They're supposed to be strong enough to go into that world and not just to deal with it, but to turn it on its head. You know, Votie, I asked Votie about this a lot because I was really, you know, it's this thing about get your kids to work with you and things like that and that's true. If they want to take over your business, great, but not everybody's called to start a business. Not everybody's called to do this or that. And you've got to see what does your child want? You know, what is, how's God gearing it? So it's both those things, character and intellect. Very important. All the books of Douglas Wilson that are about education are great. They have a point, his book has gotten radical. Also in, guys, this is what I'm going to do with Ian and Evan. When they get, Ian will be able to do it pretty quick I think because he's so good at reading, but have you ever heard of Susan Wise Ballard? All right. She's got a well-educated mind and this is in literature and I was looking at this last year and I was just amazed and what it is is, you know some of the greatest scholars that our world has ever known. They didn't, they didn't do like English the way we do it. And what she's done is, she's brilliant, first of all. She's a young lady. She's in her 30s or something. She's just brilliant. What she's done is, she's taken the different literary genres, okay, like history, poetry, you know, just that type of stuff and going down through there. And, and she, she'll take several pages, but not a lot, several pages to explain to you, this is what this literary genre is and this is how you understand it. Then, she will give you a list of all the books that your child should read so that in this area they have a well-educated mind. And so what the child does is, the child, you know, they're probably 14 or 15 when they begin this, but instead of reading and having to do all this heavy work that no one ever remembers from high school, they're reading these things, they're asking the right questions that she's given them. And so, at the end, before they left their home, they've read all the major works that have a well-educated mind in literature and history, whether it be poetry, whatever, and all her books like that are just wonderful. In Proverbs, where it says to train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it, I've heard teaching that says, that's referring to salvation and his walk with the Lord, and I've heard teaching that says you should help him figure out what, what walk of life, like what profession he should have and train him up when he's young to enter that, and that's what it's referring to, and I don't know which is, I guess there's different ways of looking at it, but what's, what's your take on it? Say the text again. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Did you know that the old commentary writers didn't take that as a promise? They, J.C. Ryle, who's one of the greatest Bible interpreters out there, he said, basically the passage is more talking about neglect, and it's, basically let a child train itself in the way that he's bent, and when he's old he'll not depart from it. It's a very difficult passage in Hebrew to deal with, and I, I think that since it's seen as both, by many as a, as a warning, and by others as a promise, I take it as both. The way that he should go, whenever it's talking, to say that it's perfection, it's like, from what context do you get that? I mean, I have to ask myself, where does the context introduce the idea of perfection here? The way that he should go, Proverbs is all about the way of the Lord, the way of character, the way of virtue. Now, if it's used in a negative, what it's basically saying is, neglect your child, and, and, and he'll follow his bend, which is a sinful bend, and when he's old he won't depart from it. And, now remember what Proverbs are. Proverbs are not a, if you do this, this will happen. That's where people misunderstand Proverbs, because, you know, the, the righteous are wealthy. Well, that's not necessarily true. There's righteous people right now starving to death. Proverbs is inspired by the Holy Spirit, working through men, and what it is, is wisdom of observation, is what Proverbs is. You, you take a man who is hardworking, generally, you take all the men in the world who are hardworking, or even all the men in Athabasca who are hardworking and don't spend their money on liquor. You can make general statements about them, can't you? Usually they prosper. It's observable. You can take your son out and say, look at the ant. Now, not every ant makes it through the winter, but it says, look at this ant. And that's what Proverbs is about. Now, he's not saying that a child who's neglected by his dad with regard to godly teaching will never turn to Christ. He's not saying that. But he is saying what we all know. Children that are totally neglected by their parents and the things of Christ, when they get older, it's very difficult that you see someone come to know Christ after many, many years of sin. But they do. But it's not often. So, it's a general thing of, you neglect your child and turn him over to the way he's bent. I mean, you know as well as I do of all of our children who are uninstructed from the time they were born and be like Lord of the Flies. I mean, it'd be horrid. Just, it'd be horrid. Alright? That's what he's talking about. Now, also, train up a child in the way that he should go. Show him the way of virtue and the way of wisdom. And rarely will a child depart from that. For the seventh floor, by accident, at a condom, the baby fell. They ran down everybody. The baby's dead. No, the baby was fine. But I mean, you throw ten babies out there and I can assure you usually nine of them at least are going to be dead. But you see what I mean? It's a general observation. So much so that you're not going to do it. We have come from an era where the radio preachers have spoken on that being just a, it's a proverb, not a promise. That if we teach the gospel in our home properly, thoroughly, a child is ingrained and the likelihood of him departing is less, period. And if, like Michael Pearl says, and Michael Pearl, if you've ever heard of him, he has the thing, no greater joy, he's the rightest person in the world. When he's wrong, he's scary wrong. I mean, he has said some of the most brilliant things I've ever heard and he has said some of the craziest things I have ever heard in my life. I call social services. But if you've got enough wisdom to discern, he'll tell you things. One of the things he said is, and this is kind of what I've always got in my mind and it's always the thing, also gives me a contrite spirit, is he said in all the homes that he's ever seen that have been successful, they have one common denominator. He said some of them have devotionals every day and Dad's leading them, some hardly ever have devotionals in the home and Dad's just kind of living as a godly man among them. He said, I've seen so many different ways of raising children and families. But he said, the one common denominator is joy. The father's joy towards the mother, the mother's joy towards the father and the parents' joy towards their children. And, you know, where you're not just like this, you know, where there's honest to goodness joy. And you carry that out, just ask yourself, is the fruit of the Spirit evident in my home? Not just principles and proverbs. Like when I see Scott Brown and his wife, I can see a, just a more than just principle. I see fragrance. I see an attraction. I see an affection. With him and his kids, it's the same thing. I see an honest affection. You can't, legalism can't give birth to that. And I can say this because it's my own home. And that is, I have to just about attribute everything in my home that's negative. I mean, if I was having a really good day and she was not, the home was controlled by me. And if Charlotte was having a great day and I was not, the home was controlled by me. I've seen it. I've seen it enough to know at least, for my life, I can't deny it. I can't deny it. The home is controlled by me. My attitude when I walk in the door. And you can expect, guys, that where Satan is going to get you when you walk in that door is with your wife. He's going to get you with her. He is. That's where it's going to come. And I'm sitting there one day and I'm going, my wife and I both are bilingual. We both have graduated from college and universities. Then, I mean, how is it I can say something with my mouth meaning, honestly, meaning something positive and the time it gets into her ear, it is a negative thing I'm saying. I mean, it's almost like, goodness gracious! What is it? And vice versa. She can say something to me and bam! Totally. It's two things. One is unforgiving sin so that there's bitterness. Or maybe she's had a habit of sin or I've had a habit of sin of being critical in a certain area. When that certain area comes up, if she says something, even though she's not intended to be critical, I'm already assuming she's going to be critical. That's one. The other thing is the accuser. His power to put thoughts in your head. I mean, have you ever walked into a church or just somewhere and someone looked at you just maybe like that and they don't say hi to you or something and automatically in your head you're going, they don't like me. Well, obviously, it was what happened last week. I mean, you just, all these things start coming into your brain that aren't real. That's what the devil does. That's what he really is good at. Big time. Those are little pieces of... When you sin against your wife, when she sins against you, whoever you are, go and ask her and use that type of language. Please forgive me because I did this. Oh, don't worry about it. Or basically saying, just walking away and going. Especially women when you say, I'm just not going to talk to you right now. Oh, you're going to withhold forgiveness right now? Well, you've done it so many times. Do you realize how dangerous that language is? You couldn't be in a more dangerous predicament. You have just withheld mercy. So he's done it three times already today. Seventy times seven. How many times, Lord, should I forgive? Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. And then your children. I got angry with Evan today and I didn't do right. Please forgive me. Don't say, hey, I blew it. Don't use that kind of language. It's not strong enough. Say, I did this to you. Please forgive me. The word confession comes from the Greek word homo logeo, which means from which you get homosexual or homogenous. It means oneness, sameness. Homo logeo, which means to speak. To speak the same thing. And the Holy Spirit tells you, you have been angry unjustly. And you look at God and say, God, what you speak to me, I speak back to you. I am in agreement with you regarding my sin. I have been angry unjustly. Please forgive me. That's confession. To speak the same thing. And when a person knows that you have done them wrong, you speak to them what they know. And wives, listen to me. You've got to stop it. Making your husband hunt down and figure out the reason why you're angry. Stop it. God doesn't do that. And you don't have that right either. You do not. And you go and say, this, you made me angry because of this. Guys, how many times do you do stuff? At least me. Maybe you guys don't. And I've done something really stupid and said something really stupid. I don't have a clue. I don't have a clue. And then all of a sudden, I realize, you know, honey, what are we going to eat tonight? Food. Okay. Okay. Okay. What? What should I do? Well, you're too stupid to figure it out. You know, go think about it. Does God ever say, you know, go think about it for a while, figure it out yourself? You see, I mean, it's the same thing. Or me, you know. But see, some of us women don't have that problem. If there's something that bothers us, we'll speak up. At least I do. But there's mostly times where it's problems where, what's wrong, Heidi? And I seriously don't know. I know I'm in a bad mood and something's wrong, but the reason I'm saying I don't know is because I can't put my finger on it. I'm mad. All right? And then you need to sit down. Yeah, but then it's like, no, you're lying. There's got to be something wrong. You know, and then just, there does. And that's, that's why, you know, people think a quiet time, you know, of time with the Lord, they think that, well, I just read my chapter. We are not a contemplative people. You're sitting there and you're messed up. You're really feeling anxious or angry inside. That's a cause for, you need to get along with Christ. You need to just sit there on your bed or something and you need to figure out, why am I this way? What's going on? One of the greatest monsters in its idolatry is this. And it's why everybody gets depressed. I believe there can be things going on in the body physically. I do believe that. I do believe it's far overplayed, you know, with our drug culture. But, almost everything is unmet expectations. Somebody failed me. I did not get what I wanted. Things did not turn out the way I wanted them to turn out. And that, a friend of mine, Andy Wisner, was teaching with me down in Peru and he started teaching on this. And I mean, I just started taking notes. Because he's going, every time you're upset, every time, usually, we're depressed, things like that, it's because something did not go the way we demand. Now, we'll always throw it on a person. You know, you didn't do what I thought you were supposed to do. But even though we don't say it, we do it against God. God, this didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. This isn't like it's supposed to be. And so, I'm not going to be joyful and I'm not going to be strong until the world turns my way. That's idolatry. I mean, it's unbelievable how deceived we can be. Let me give you an example. A man jumps off of a bridge, a man who's a husband. He has a wife and children. He jumps off a bridge and he leaves a note behind. I just don't love me. I just, I just hate myself. He jumps off a bridge. And so everybody goes, why'd he jump off a bridge? He just hated himself. No, he jumped off the bridge because he loved himself more than any human being on this planet. You say, well, what do you mean? Well, he obviously loved himself more than he loved his wife. Because look what he left her with. He loved himself more than he loved his children. Look how scarred they are. He loved himself more than he loved God. He didn't obey God. You see, it's self love that gets him to jump off that bridge. And my freedom from depression came when I realized, when I traced almost everything back to sin. When I traced it back to Paul Washer, just didn't get what Paul Washer wanted. Didn't get the life that I wanted. Didn't get the health that I wanted. Didn't get this that I wanted. And realizing it was sin. And then when you go out and say, okay, what can I do for this person to get? Like a girl walks into the office and she says, and with her parents. And she's just disgruntled. She's angry. What's wrong? She says, I'm ugly and nobody loves me. So her entire life is controlled by two thoughts. And all I have to do is discern, are they true? Because if they're not true, she's believing a lie. And I need to help her to repent of her sin. And get her to believe in the truth. So I go, okay, let's look, you're ugly. That's your first controlling statement. What does Scripture say? God's made all things beautiful in its time. I go through different things. I may even have to point out, you know, physical characteristics for other people in the room. You're not an ugly girl. You're a normal, healthy, young girl. Okay? And then I go and you say, okay, nobody loves you. Okay, God loves you. So do I believe you or God? Now, and then I would ask her this next question. Okay, before you answer this, realize I will have to call social services if certain things are said. What do you mean? Well, I want you now to tell me how your parents hate you and abuse you. She goes, well, they don't. No, really. I said, be honest. I'll protect you. I'll call social services immediately. I'll keep your dad off of you. Tell me how your father hates you. Well, he doesn't hate me. Well, no one loves you. So you're in an unloved family situation. I want to know what the evidence is. Now, remember, I may have to call social services. I'm bound by the law. She says, no. And then what in the end comes out is, here's the problem. There are two or three other girls in her class that are just drop-down gorgeous, and every time those girls walk in the class, every head in the class turns and looks at them. She's not one of them. Her problem is not that she's ugly and nobody loves her. Her problem is, she wants to be the center of everybody's world, and she's not. You see how deceptive things can be that lead to depression? And most of the time, again, I believe that health, I believe that even certain things chemically can happen in a body that hurt a person. I know. I know what pain can do to you. But I think most of the part, it's sin. Jay Adams is good to read on that if you want a competent account. When is Jesus coming back? Or the study of last things. It comes from the Greek word eschaton, which means last things. It's a neuter noun. And then logos, which is discourse. It's a discourse of last things. The primary thing, especially in Canada and the United States, is what we call premillennialism. Jesus is going to come back. There's a secret rapture, three years of tribulation, seven years, and then Christ comes back, destroys the Antichrist, the thousand-year reign of Christ, and then another rising up. That's the most prevalent view in Canada and the United States. Haven't you listened to the Left Behind series? Left Behind series. North End Left Behind and Left Behind series. But what's funny is that view is not held hardly. You look at the book of Revelation. I know guys who could sit here in this table right now and argue with you and make you look so dumb. They could sit down and argue the point that the entire book of Revelation is already fulfilled. The idea of a secret rapture, no one believed in that. There's so much stuff out there, goofy stuff, that the one thing that we have to put our focus on is that we are to be ready. We are to be ready. One of the things that's interesting, though, is if I had to put my finger on what was going to happen, I would say this, that at any moment, even now, a trumpet could blow. You see, Paul the Apostle believed that. So the imminent return of Christ could happen. The whole idea is this. When John the Baptist came to Jerusalem, he said, make every low place high and every high place low and prepare a path for the Lord. In Oriental culture, what that meant was a king could conquer a city or a domain and then he would put his people in charge and he may leave for 20, 30 years, never come back. But when he came back, what he would do is he would stand outside the city and then he would send in emissaries. He would send in loyalists who, while they were coming toward the city, they would tell all the people outside the city to prepare a path. The king was coming. And what would happen was when they made that announcement at the city gates, all the loyalists to the king would come out. And as they came out, they would prepare the way for the king. And then as soon as they arrived with the king, the king would come back in. He knew who his people were. He knew the loyalists because they came out to him and the others he would crush as insurrectionists and rebels. I believe that's exactly what will happen. That Christ, a trumpet will blow, the dead in Christ will rise in a fraction of a second before the living can even go, wow, what's that? They will be transformed and taken with Christ. The moment we meet Him in the air, I believe that the whole thing will turn and Christ will come back at that very moment. And we with Him. And then the judgment of the name. That's amazing. Just like that. I don't see any grounds for believers being taken out. Nor do most scholars. Like if you were to ask the Chinese today about do you think we'll pass through the tribulation, they would say we've been passing through it for 80 years. If a man of lawlessness is to appear, I think that would happen prior to the coming of Christ. But it's very, very uncertain because the emperor in his name actually can count in Latin 666, the emperor of Rome. And so you're wondering who was John speaking about? If that's all we had was the book of Revelation, I would say it was a done deal. But you come to 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians seems to be something very, very future. One of the things that I think lends to the fact that we are living in something of Him. See, the church has been, we've been in the last days for 2,000 years. They began, according to Peter, they began on the day of Pentecost with the coming of the Messiah. We entered into the Messianic age. We've been in the last days. He quotes Joel and he says, Joel says, in the last days I will pour out my spirit. But what really bothers me today is that if you look at the Tower of Babel, the world was continuing on until it became united. It became united. And there's something very important. With the Tower of Babel, nation states were formed. And those nation states were separated by language. Now, there was so much wisdom and grace in God doing that because it's always been that if one nation became corrupt, it was corrupt in itself. It wasn't that its corruption bled over into other nation states. They were like separate entities, almost like if my arm is cancerous, the doctor cuts off my arm, even though the arm is destroyed, the rest of my body is saved. That's why the Tower of Babel was destroyed. It brought everybody together in the united force against God so that all the society would have to be destroyed, just like in the time of Noah. When the sons of God and the daughters of men came together, which maybe was the line of Seth and the line of Cain that came together. There was no longer a godly line and the world was destroyed. So he gets them out. Noah comes out. Then there's this Tower of Babel that goes on. It's basically doing the same thing. There's no godly line left. So you bring all the nations together. Or there weren't nations, just one people. Tower of Babel. Evil is going to be rampant. It's going to require another flood, another destruction of some sort. God shows mercy and he divides them. The problem is today we see the ending of the results of the Tower of Babel. If Hollywood says something tomorrow morning, it will be in some remote place in the Philippines by the afternoon. And the collective depravity. You can't point to one nation state right now where it's flourishing in godliness and separated from the poison that's in our culture. It's just all amassing and growing and growing and growing. And that's what makes me think that there will either be something that will break this again, which it would almost have to be the loss of all technology. Something would break this again or it's the coming of Christ. And the Chinese believers have a really neat perspective. Very few people know this, but one of the greatest commitments of the Chinese church is to make its way back to Jerusalem. It's an amazing, amazing thing. They say we will. They said the Americans, the Westerners cannot do it. They do not have the strength. The Christians are weak. They're afraid to die. They love their stuff. And they say we believe that the gospel has to come back to Jerusalem and through the Muslims. And since we've been trained in martyrdom and trained in suffering for a hundred years, this doesn't cause us to fear. It's amazing when you look at some of the other countries. I'm in fear of bad news we're going to put there. It's huge. It's amazing when you look and see the enemy trying to