In this sermon, the speaker expresses their anger and concern about a book that they believe is leading women in the wrong direction. They caution against the pressure of the world to conform morally and emphasize the importance of dealing with negative thoughts and seeds in the mind. The speaker also discusses the significance of crises, such as funerals, in making people realize the true meaning of life. The sermon concludes with a focus on living to please God and bringing joy to His heart through our actions and values.

Revelation 4.11, don't turn, just listen, or put it in your notes if you want. We've used this a lot on Pleasing to God, and we're continuing in the Pleasing to God series this morning. But Revelation 4.11 tells us that we were created, that all things were created for God's pleasure. And that means that each one of us in this room were created for God's pleasure, to be to His glory, to be to His honor and to His praise. And we have a choice, we can live to please Him or live to please ourselves. And God is really impressed on my heart, impressing on your heart, living to please God. Living to bring joy to His heart by the way we live, by our manner of living, by our customs, by our values, by all these things, pleasing the heart of God. It is probably the strongest influence in my life right now, living to please the heart of God. And I think, oh, I just want to say to every Christian, I want to, you know, sort of shake us all and say, hey, look what's happening, there isn't much time, let's give it all we've got. I feel like a cheerleader or a coach, you know, and I'm going, come on, you're going to win, the game's almost over, we're in the last quarter of the game in the last few minutes, and we are going to win because God's word said we should. So give it all you've got, run with all your might and with all patience and endurance and just really get in there and start just doing everything you can. So if we have a chance of laying a crown at His feet, that crown will just be filled in so heavy we can hardly get it off our heads, not to wear ourselves, but to lay at the feet of Jesus. Don't you want precious sheaves to lay at His feet? Don't you want gold and silver, and I'm talking about the spiritual quality of gold and silver, just to say, oh, Lord, you've done so much for me, I just want to put all this at Your feet. Come on, we have not much time. And, you know, in pleasing Him, we become the strongest influence possible in our world. We do, we become the strongest influence. You cannot become a strong influence in your world in any other way, and the more you please Him, the stronger your influence. Ann Ortlund wrote a book called Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman, and in the book she talks about cleaning out your closets and cleaning out your dresser drawers, and she uses two words which really, to me, sum up what we as women ought to be doing in these last days, and it doesn't have anything to do with house cleaning, but the two words are eliminate and concentrate, or concentrate and eliminate. And if you're taking notes, write those words down this morning. Eliminate and concentrate. This morning, let's concentrate on bringing joy to the heart of God by eliminating anything that clutters our lives or our walk with Him. You know, when your closet gets all cluttered, how hard it is to find anything, and how much time it takes. You have to, you know, go through all, push back, hangers, and it's such a mess, but when you get everything in order, you walk to your closet, and you pull the blouse out, and you pull the skirt out, and it's so easy. We allow so many things to clutter our lives. We waste so much time just trying to move through the clutter to get to the things spiritually that we really ought to be doing. Turn to Romans 12, 1 and 2 this morning. Let's read the two verses all together. If you didn't go to Sunday school, I think that we did this a couple of years ago in the class. We started learning the books of the Bible, and every week we'd say the books of the Bible through, you know, a few, and we'd add a few each week. If you've never done that, will you start doing it? Learn two or three each week, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Genesis, just say them over and over and over, and then go on and on and on, and start with the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st, 2nd, Corinthians, so that when you're turning your Bible, you can turn a lot quicker. I'm not complaining about my class, but it will be there, especially when Chuck wants you to look for some minor prophet like Habakkuk or Jonah, and people go, oh boy, I wish I knew the page number, and it doesn't work that way. So Romans, try it. If you're new in the Lord or you never did go to Sunday school, learn the books of the Bible by memory, and in the front of every Bible there is a list of the books, right, as they go, and you'll find that it's much easier to locate things in your Bible. Okay, Romans 12, 1 and 2, let's read it together. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. By way of review, last week we talked about Paul beseeching us by the mercies of God, by all that God had done for us in giving Jesus Christ on the cross. In the last few months, Chuck has come into a greater and deeper awareness of what God has done for him, and in Chico and in Reading he shared with the pastors both places, he said, for so many years I taught what we ought to be doing, we ought to be doing to receive a blessing from God. But he said, you know, I'm seeing now, we look at what God has done for us and we respond to what he's done. It's the response to him. You know, I said to him, oh, I see submission and the husband loving his wife, it's the church in a brand new way. And he said, what's that? And I said, well, the husband loves, you know, people are always saying, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Does the wife submit first and then he loves her? Does he love her first and she submits? And I said, I am just the responder. You love me and I always respond with submission. And if I'm not responding, it's because you're not loving me as you should. And I got out the door and down the hall. He knew I was kidding. But Paul beseeched us by the mercies of God. In other words, he said, stop and realize all that God has done for you. And when you stop and think of all that he's done for you, you know, there's nothing less that you can do than give him everything. Your body, your soul, submit your entire life to him. May we close the doors? The little ones crying, I think, are a bit disturbing. We talked last week about presenting our bodies, our entire being, and that means our bodies, physical, and our mind and emotions and will, our soul. And we talked about presenting, which means dedicating. The same word is used in Luke 2.22. When they took Jesus into the temple and they dedicated him, they presented his entire being unto God. As Chuck says so often when he's dedicating, all the potential was dedicated unto God. And Paul uses that same Greek word here, present your bodies, dedicate your bodies. Give your mind completely to God, your emotions completely to God, your will completely to God. And I suggested that when Chuck does baby dedications on Sunday morning, that you not just pray for the baby that's being dedicated, but you yourself, present yourself, dedicate yourself anew unto God. I did that last Sunday morning, and I pray that a lot of you did too. Just sit there and say, Lord, I am yours completely. My mind is yours, my body is yours, my soul is yours, my spirit, all are yours. And then we talked last week about giving ourselves completely as a living sacrifice, denying ourselves, taking up our cross and follow him. We stress the fact that sacrifice always means a loss to you, or else it's not a sacrifice. It means a giving up of something that you like possessing. But when you give your life to Jesus, you give it as a living sacrifice in response to all he's done for you. Now we're going to skip on to verse 2, and we're going to, in a few weeks, come back to verse 1, probably. But this morning the Lord has impressed us on my heart so strongly. Just seven words, it's a seven-word exhortation, and it is, and be not conformed to this world. Say it all together. And be not conformed to this world. I wish I could take a pin of iron and engrave this on your mind this morning. Be not conformed in this world. Living Bible says, don't copy the customs and behavior of this world. And I say, don't be squeezed into this world's mold. Amplified Bible says, do not be conformed to this world, this age, fashioned after and adapted to its external superficial customs. Barclay, in his commentary on Romans, says, and this is so rich, don't try to match your life to all the fashions of this world. Don't be like a chameleon which takes its color from its surroundings. Isn't that good? Don't be like a chameleon or chameleon, whichever you say, which takes its color from its surroundings. Don't let the world decide what you're going to be like. Don't let the world decide what you're going to be like. The root word in Greek for the word used for conform is schema. Schema. And it means an outward form which varies from day to day, from year to year. Some examples of changing customs. 25 years ago, or I'll go back, I'll say in the 1920s, if anybody went on the beach in a bikini, they probably would have been put in jail for indecent exposure. You've all seen pictures of the 20s bathing suits, you know, down in the hose and all that stuff with them and how long they were and how covered they were, and it would have been considered indecent exposure. Bikinis are becoming modest in this day and age. Just some of us, and when we were in Hawaii this year, a girl sat out in front of our condominium, which was right on the beach, topless. Yes, she did, and I wanted to go out, and I was restrained by Brian and Cheryl, who also were very angry, but, you know, I wanted to say, you're offending me, and I don't like it, and that's the way it was. Anyhow, it's the way the world is now. We use words now that we couldn't use 20 years ago. For instance, when I was expecting my children, we did not say pregnant. How many women were in that age? I'm the only one over 50 here? Yeah, we did not say that word, and it took me a long time to get used to it, and I don't consider myself prudish or strange, or maybe you do, but I don't. But we just did not say pregnant. You just didn't. You said, I'm anticipating or I'm expecting or, you know, or da-da-da-da-da or something. There are all these lovely little euphemisms that we use, and Betty knows this. It's true, isn't it, Betty? Yeah, we did. And, you know, a more up-to-date example of schema or the changing day by day and week by week are fashions. Fashions change so rapidly, styles, colors, fashions. Polyester, I remember when polyester pantsuits came out, I thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. And, you know, you just, oh, boy, I went to Israel and nothing wrinkled, and it was marvelous. Well, now the young people do not like polyester. Do you know what they like? You young people already know. A hundred percent cotton. Boy, they've never stood at an ironing board half a night getting that ironing done. A hundred percent cotton. Remember, we used to wash it, starch it, hang it up, bring it in, dampen it, and iron it. Oh, girls, listen, I beseech you. Don't get caught in that trap. Oh, unless you like wrinkled clothes, which is supposed to be in, too, I understand. Why didn't all this happen 30 years ago? And I could have really appreciated it then. All Chuck's white shirts I had to do all that with, oh. And the current big problem in our society, in our world today, every place we go we hear, now you might know what this means, who killed J.R.? What's it mean? Yeah, I've seen that J.R. for president bumper sticker, too. But isn't it, don't you hear that a lot, who killed J.R.? And everybody likes Dallas. Hmm. Don't be conformed to this world. Don't be swayed, moved, adapted to this vacillating, unstable, impermanent world system. Do not be conformed to this world. What does the Bible mean when it says world? It's not a round globe with a map on it that you saw in the library at school when you were a kid, is it? And it doesn't mean the universe, the cosmos. It doesn't mean this created world of God that we go out and we look at full moon right now. Isn't the moon absolutely gorgeous? We flew from Sacramento to Chico in a private plane, a little single-engine plane, and it had lots of windows, and the full moon just lit up all the terrain. It was so beautiful. We had to yell to hear each other, but we're like, oh, isn't it a beautiful moon? Isn't it a beautiful night? And Chuck was up by the pilot, and, you know, we're yelling back and forth and rejoicing in God's goodness to give us full moon. And God wants us to rejoice in this. When you look up in the sky and you see the stars and you see the sun on those bright days and you see a flower and you see a beautiful tree, it's fine to thank God for those things. It's right. That's his created world. But what the Bible means when it refers to a world like this, it means a system of living. The Greek word is aion, which means an age. Don't be conformed to this age. The things that are going on in your world right now, this world, don't be conformed to them. Don't be pressed into its mold. Don't be squeezed into its mold. It means the way people behave in this time. More precisely, it means the moral characteristics and value system of this age and this time. There are two kingdoms, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. One is ruled by God and one is ruled by Satan. And the one the word refers to when it's talking about don't be conformed to this world is the world order that is ruled by Satan. Now, anything that comes out of that world, remember, comes from the prince of the power of the air. In Greek, there is a word. Now, I don't know Greek, but I get this out of the commentary and I enjoy it and you might too. There is a word called k-a-t-a. I think it's katasarka. It means a life dominated by human nature at its lowest. That is the world that the Bible is referring to when it tells us to love not the world, k-a-t-a. And then another word, s-a-r-k-a, life dominated by human nature at its lowest. Contrast it with k-a-t-a and then another word, c-h-r-i-s-t-o-n, christen, katakristen, or katanuma. You've heard the word numa lots of times, which means spirit, which means a life dominated by Christ or by the Holy Spirit. Contrast it. Are you living in the kingdom of light and doing the things that are done and controlled by the kingdom of darkness and the things that are coming out of the kingdom of darkness? In 1 John 2.15 in the Living Bible, and don't turn to it, please just listen, is the best description of the world that I can give you this morning, of the world as Paul tells us not to be conformed to, the world that he says don't be conformed to. I had all my places marked in my other Bible, so please bear with me this morning. Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you. For when you love these things, you show that you do not really love God. And this is his description of this evil world I'm talking about. For all these worldly things, these evil desires, the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance, these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself. Now, King James calls it the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And these are the same three temptations that Satan brought to Eve in the Garden of Eden. And you can read about it in Genesis. And exactly Genesis, the third chapter, he came to her with the same three temptations. And women, today, you are being pressed to conform to the world by these same three roads. Satan has not changed his tactics. He's doing the very thing today. And Paul says, don't be conformed. Don't be pulled into this thing, this trap that Satan has for you. Why shouldn't we be conformed to this world? I just described it to you, and you can tell from that. But Jesus tells us in John 14, 30, that Satan is the ruler of this evil world. Okay, Satan is the ruler, the ruler of this world system. And although we live in it, we are not to be a part of it. The Word tells us that we are to seek first what kingdom? The kingdom of God. Seek first the kingdom of God. Don't be conformed to this world system. Seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the things you need will be added unto you. We think that by walking in the worldly system, we're going to get all our needs met, and all the material things we need, and blah, blah, blah. God never designed it that way. He said, when you seek me first, I'll add to your life every single thing you need. And I'm here this morning to tell you that He will, and He does. David said, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And that means God supplied his every need. Okay, Jesus also prayed, as recorded in John, the 17th chapter, and the 15th and 16th verses, for His disciples and all who would believe on Him. Not that they would be taken out of this world, but they would be kept from the evil that is in the world. And then He said of His disciples, and He says of you as believers this morning, They are not of the world, He said to God as He was in prayer in the 17th chapter of John. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. You are not supposed to be a part of this present evil world, in its lusts and desires and ambitions and goals. You're supposed to have a whole different form of life, and you are to get all your guidance and information and values from the kingdom of light. In a book called Beyond Humiliation by J. Gregory Mantle, he describes the world as the Bible would describe the world when we say, Be not conformed to it. The world has its own prince, its own court, its own council, its own laws, its own principles, its own maxims, its own literature. It is the counterfeit of God's church and the devil's principal weapon for lowering and poisoning the heavenly life in the individual and the church. What do you think of that? It is the devil's principal weapon for lowering and poisoning the heavenly life in the individual and the church. James 4.4 says it in an even stronger word. James says if we're friends with the world, this worldly system, we're enemies of God. We're enemies of God if we're friends. If we love this worldly system and all this junk that comes out of it, this craving for sex, this immorality that's coming out of it, the desire to possess material things and this thing for fame, wealth, prestige, great reputation and all that. He said if you love all that stuff, if you're friends with the world, if that's what you like to walk with and be a part of, you're an enemy of God. We should ponder that. We should think about it. The Living Bible reads, You're like an unfaithful wife who loves her husband's enemies. If you love this world system, you're like an unfaithful wife who loves her husband's enemies. And then in 1 John 2.16, John expresses it in an even stronger way. If you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. You know, so many of us as Christians think, oh, I'm born again. It's cool. It's marvelous. I can do anything I want. I can go out and see these rotten pictures. I can drink all I want. I can do this. I can do that. I can have all this sex I want. I can live any way I want. It's not true. If you want to live that way, the love of God isn't in you. I was talking to somebody recently who said, I hadn't seen him in church a long time. They said, I don't like to go to church. I don't like to be in the sanctuary. Too many people. The person that sits next to me always chews gum. Drives me crazy. And I looked at him and I said, you know what you're saying? You're saying that something's wrong with your relationship with God. Because when the love of the Father is in you, you want to be with His people. You want to be in the sanctuary. I go in and I feel that love. Do you? I mean it comes in waves. And I don't know anybody in the next row in front of me lots of times. Maybe the person I'm sitting next to I know and a few others. I don't know an awful lot of people in Calvary. It's impossible to know everybody and I'd love to, but I don't. And yet the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit is so strong there. I cannot tell you how many times in the sanctuary God has given me answers to life's problems. Have you had it happen? You're sitting there and you know we've had people get absolutely angry with Chuck. First-timers. They'll say, my friend told you all about me. And Chuck hadn't seen their friend in six months, you know. Chuck said, no, they didn't. You mean that God had something to say to me this morning about my life? Yes. And we need to realize that whatever comes out of that, whatever we love in that evil world proves a lack of the love of the Father. Now, I don't want to be an enemy of God and I don't want to lack his love in my life. But if you love the world, the love of the Father is in you. And we've got to think about these things this morning. Paul says in Galatians 6.14, and I'm paraphrasing it, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. In other words, he so walked with Jesus Christ that the world was dead unto him. And, you know, anything that's dead can't have any grip on you, can it? It can't grab you and pull you. The world was dead unto him and he was dead unto the world. And he said, you can follow my example. We can follow Paul's example. Oh, I long to have the world completely dead unto me. No pull at all from it. I don't want to be conformed to it. I don't want to be squeezed into its mold. I want to see it as God sees it and I want to be pleasing to the heart of God. When your spiritual eyes are open to see this world order as we know it, with all its fleeting, phony, competitive values, and this whole thing was begun in the Garden of Eden by a woman being deceived, you too will have no love for the world or desire to be conformed to it or by it. In addition, John says, this world is fading away and these evil, forbidden things will go with it. But he that does the will of God will live forever. He that doeth the will of God will live forever. Okay. There are pressure points of Satan on women to conform to this world system. And they're very, very strong. Most of us would readily agree this morning if we have a craze for sex and an ambition to buy everything that appeals to us and the pride that comes from wealth and importance, we wouldn't have much love for God in our heart. That isn't where most of us are this morning. But our conformity to this world comes upon us in a much more subtle way. Remember the serpent in the garden? He was the subtlest of all the beasts of the field. He's very clever, crafty. He sneaks in in little ways and he causes us to love something just a little bit more than we did yesterday. Something out of this world. Love it just a little bit more. Want to be there just a little more. A little less of Jesus. A little more of this. And it sneaks in and it creeps in. Satan is also a liar. And he presents these things to us as so desirable and so wonderful. We just can't live without him. He also is a deceiver. And his plan for you, as recorded in John 10.10, is to kill and destroy you. The Bible says the thief comes but for to steal and kill and destroy. And that's what Satan, that's his plan for your life. God has a plan for your life and Satan has a plan for your life. And Satan's plan is to destroy you eternally. We need to be aware of his tactics. We're told in the Bible we're not ignorant of his devices. But there is a terrible, terrible pressure on women today to conform to this world. People think it's strange when you're a Christian and you don't want to party with them, don't they? They can't understand. If you work in an office and you don't appreciate their crummy jokes and you walk away, sometimes you're a very lonely person in an office. I talked to a lady a few weeks ago that said, OK, you know, in my office it's very lonely to walk with Jesus. When they talk about the pleasures of the world and the weekends and all the stuff they've done on the weekend and I'm just not interested, she said, they're not interested in me. It's lonely. You know, Jesus had a lonely walk to Calvary too, didn't he? He walked all alone up that hill Golgotha. Some of the places that we're pressured to conform, first of all, the world sets up its standard for the ideal woman. And I want you this week, I did it quickly and I'm going to take more time with it and I've done it before but I want to do it again. I want you to make two columns on a sheet of paper and write on one column the world's ideal woman. And I want you to write all the descriptive words of the world's ideal woman, what the world thinks is beautiful, what the world says is ideal. And some of the things you might write down is she's young, she's thin, she's beautiful, she's brilliant, she's career-oriented, she's sexy. And the woman who doesn't measure up and who can, even Bo Derek, I understand her husband doesn't think she's a ten, isn't that wonderful? And the woman who doesn't measure up is made to feel of little value. It's no wonder that American women have such low self-esteem, is it? Look at the ideal that is set before us out of the kingdom of darkness, that Satan is the prince of the power of it. And you know that by filling you with low self-esteem, he creates needs in your life and then he convinces you that the only way they're going to be filled is by measuring up to the world's idea. If I could have a hairstyle just like Farrah Fawcett, or if I could have a hairstyle, cornrows, just like Bo Derek, that takes ten hours to fix, if I could just have that, if I just had the perfect figure, if I just had the perfect education, I'd have it made. And yet, all around us are signs that it simply is not true. I know brilliant women who don't know God and they are miserable. I met a woman several years ago who was missing. I won't tell you which state she was. She was beautiful. She had a marvelous marriage at one time, very wealthy man. She had darling children. She had all this, this, and this. And she was one of the most unhappy women I ever met because she didn't have Jesus. She was living in that other world. And don't you ever let Satan deceive you into thinking that if you had all this, you would be happy. Jane Mansfield, with her perfect figure, was a miserable woman. She died a drug addict and a heavy drinker. Marilyn Monroe's death, her life, what a mess. On and on and on. We can name Jean Harlow, all these people that are these beautiful images. I don't think that Farrah Fawcett is doing so well these days. Whoever hears of her anymore, she's been replaced. Who cares, you know? That's the way the world is and it keeps replacing. And you have to improve on the last one constantly. These things do not satisfy. And this ideal comes out of the kingdom of darkness. And every single woman in this room is being pressured one way or another to conform to it. Have you ever gone in a room with pointed toe shoes when round shoes were the vogue? Oh boy, you really have to walk with Jesus to not care, don't you? Or last year's color, oh. You know, it's good to be released from that. It is so good to be released from that. You don't have to conform to the world's standards. I don't care in this class if you wear jeans or if you wear a mink. It does not matter to me. What matters to me is where is your heart and what kingdom are you being ruled by. If you're being ruled by the kingdom of light, you are free from that stuff. You don't have to be 125 and get anorexia nervosa to get down to 88 pounds. You're freed from it. You are. They're finding now that a few pounds over is healthier. Oh, is Chuck rejoicing? Uh-huh. You know, they always said thin was the best, and they're finding that thin men die just as quickly, very thin men die just as quickly as the overweight, way overweight. And isn't that interesting? New research. Oh boy, are we glad to hear that. But we have got to be aware because we're being pressured by this stuff. You know, if you wear long hair and everybody wears short hair, there's a pressure. If you do this, if you do whatever, there is a pressure. I know teenage girls who say it is miserable to go down on the beach dressed modestly because their friends go, oh, what a corny bathing suit, you know. Or the boys just kind of look, you know, what a bore to see her when I can look at undressed Susie over here, you know. It's true. It's true. And we have to teach our girls that they are not of this world. They're not of the kingdom of darkness, and they should dress like representatives and guided by the ruler of the kingdom of light. Set down next in the other column God's ideal of the Christian woman. Oh, what is his ideal? And I don't want you to just take a scripture that I'm going to give you this morning, but I want you to think it through. What is God's ideal for me today? What qualities and characteristics does he want woven in my life? What does he want me to be like? Is it important to God that I'm beautiful? Is it important to God that I'm thin? Is it important to God that I'm young? Is it important to God that I'm any of these things? Or what is God really interested in? One of my favorite scriptures on this and one that has helped me the most when I was a young wife years and years ago back in the horse and buggy days is 1 Peter 3, and I'm going to read it in Living Bible because I love it. 1 Peter 3.3. Just listen. Don't look it up. I want you to listen. Don't be concerned. Now, this comes out of the kingdom of light. This is God's ideal. This is just one of the phases of God's ideal for you. Don't be concerned about the outward beauty that depends on jewelry or beautiful clothes or hair arrangement. And I could add on figure or whatever else. Be beautiful inside your hearts with the lasting charm of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God, so precious to God. That kind of deep beauty was seen in the saintly women of old who trusted God. That's the kind of beauty. That's God's ideal. That's what He wants for you. And you know, it is so freeing. It is so freeing. When I was a little kid, and I bear scars from this, my mom for some reason or other didn't think it was important to have neat school clothes. And I had beautiful clothes for church, but the crummiest clothes for school. And I don't know why she was like that or why she did that, but that's what she did. And then I had an aunt that used to sew things for me sometimes, and she sewed some of the strangest looking outfits. Oh, talk about inner healing needs. And if that wasn't bad enough, I was such a skinny little thing. You know, that could be true always. But I was a real skinny, scrawny little thing with sore throats all the time when I was like in the 5th and 6th grade. And you know what my mom did? Everybody wore bobby socks, but Kay Johnson, you know what she wore? Take this off tape. Black cotton bloomers that came almost to my knees and showed, you know, if I'd move my, you know, how your dress moves, and these bloomers with black heavy cotton hose. Now, if that doesn't make you feel like a misfit, it's a miracle there's any normalcy in me at all today. And I would go to school just like, ugh, you know. It was miserable. It was miserable. And it took me years to get over that. When I would go into a room, I would just be so tense, and everything had to be absolutely perfect. I had an inheritance from my mom and dad when they died. And do you know what I spent most of it on? Clothes. I did. I was so absolutely traumatized by that. Now, by the time I got into junior high, things changed, and it got a little better. But nevertheless, that wounded and scarred me so badly. Now, I always had friends. It wasn't that my friends, in fact, were very sympathetic and sweet and all that. But it was still that awful thing of having to walk on the school grounds like that. And, you know, we moved to Los Arenos, which is a church out in the country, and my inheritance came to an end. And Chuck said, I want all your charge cards, and I want da-da-da-da-da, and this is this. And I learned that I had to live on what Chuck made, and I couldn't afford clothes. And do you know, I'd wear the same dress Sunday after Sunday, and I found such a freedom in it. God released me from that hold of that thing on my life, and it has never clung to me like it used to. There was a liberty in it. Do you know, when you're walking according to the principles of the kingdom of darkness, there is a grip on your life. And the anxiety that comes out of it and the pressure that comes out of it and this competitive spirit and this, ooh, all these things that come out of it are not freeing. They're like chains that just keep being wound around your body. Jesus came to set us free, women. Oh, He came to set us free even from those things which are trying to press in and conform us to His mold. You only have to live up to what God wants you to be. And in being what He wants you to be, you will be pleasing to Him, and He will cause your husband, if he's unsaved, He'll cause you to behave in such a way, according to 1 Peter 3 here, that without a word, He's going to be convinced, just by your manner of life, living like this, in this beauty that God desires, this inward beauty, there's going to be an effect on your entire family. I wonder how many of us have ever really sat down and written out all these places that the world is pressing us to conform. And then the world is pressing us to conform morally. Have you ever seen such a time as this? The double standard for men is supposed to be out, and women are supposed to be able to live by the double standard. The double standard is that your husband is faithful, but you can have as many affairs as you want. And it's being said on TV, we're hearing it on talk shows, we're hearing it all the time. I heard Shelley Winters a few weeks ago, and I don't often listen to Donahue, but I happened to turn it on that morning, I can't recall now why I did, but I was listening, and she said that Marilyn Monroe and she used to live together. And Marilyn Monroe had just come out of a very crushing love affair, and the man had deserted her, and Shelley Winters had been very in love with Burt Lancaster, and he had gone back to his wife and they were expecting a child, so she was crushed. Well, the two of them talked over their problems, and they decided that they were going to make a list of men, each of them would make a separate list of men they wanted to sleep with, and they were going to live just like the men lived. Now, she told this on the program the other day, but the ending is very interesting. She said, so we made a list of all the men that we wanted to sleep with, and she said, and we did it. And she said, we decided we'd have no emotional involvement, just like the men that go out and pick up the women, and she said, we did the same thing. And then you know what she said? She shook her fingers at the women, and she said, women, it doesn't work. Women, it doesn't work. Now, this is a woman who lives in the kingdom of darkness and lived by the rules of the kingdom of darkness, and she said, it doesn't work. And she warned them, and she said it over and over. And I'm here to say this morning, it doesn't work. Psychologists are proving over and over and over again that a woman cannot live like this. She was not created by God to live like this. Her emotions go out. She wants love. She wants protection. She wants caring. She needs it. She doesn't just want it. She needs it desperately. And when she has these brief encounters with these men, she is wounding her emotional life. She's scarring herself. If she took a knife and made slashes in her arms, she's doing the same thing to her emotions. You cannot live like that. You can't. And yet the world is pressing in. On that women's room, remember we mentioned last week, which is a book coming out of the heart of a woman who has really been burned by men apparently, Marilyn French. Her answer to this woman whose husband had left her for someone else was go out and have an affair. I was so angry and so sick. I watched the part of it I watched, because it is in a sense a book that is leading women a certain direction. And that is what it was saying to the world right out of the pit. A woman is never going to find fulfillment that way. She's never going to get her life together that way. Never. But the world says, oh, these are the answers to your problems. These are the answers to your needs. And they are not the answers to your problems. Beware of the pressure of the world to conform you morally in any way, shape, or form. Anyway, when the first seeds start in the mind, and we're going to talk about that next week, deal with them right then and there. Don't let any fruit come forth. Don't let any of this stuff be planted in your mind and take root and be produced in your behavior, which will be ultimately harmful to you. There are so many pressures of the world to conform. I could go on and on and on. The one about fulfillment. Get your fulfillment. We talked about it last week. Me first. It doesn't matter. It's my happiness. This is all there is. And boy, am I going to live it to the hilt. This comes out of humanistic philosophy. And the Women's Liberation Organization is full of humanistic philosophy. Remember when I read this thing by Maxwell, he said the maxims of the world, they're coming out with all these little maxims, little truths to live by. If it doesn't hurt anybody, go ahead and do it. There is no way you can end up by not hurting anybody. No way at all. How ridiculous. I see women who are buying this thing of not staying home with their children. And I love you gals this morning. It means sacrifice to many of you girls that are here. You're not out working, but you're taking care of those little 1-year-olds, 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds. I stayed home with mine, and I'm glad I did. If I had it to do all over today, I would stay home with them again. If it's an economic necessity that you work, and I know sometimes it does mean food on the table, I did have to work sometimes when my children were tiny, but it would only be for a month or two months, whatever, just so we could get over whatever. And God always provided the job and always told me when to quit. And I didn't like it. My love, my desire was to be home with them. And to this day, they all four say to me, Oh, Mom, it's so neat to come home from school, and you're always there. It means so much. I am just in a heartache over a friend of mine who has teenagers, and she's never home when they get home from school. It's awful to come home to an empty house. It's awful. We had kids that lived next door to us when we lived on St. James Street in Newport, and the mama was never there. And these were the loneliest kids in the neighborhood. Cheryl was the same age as one of the kids, and I used to get out in the evenings and roller skate with the little kid next door, and Cheryl, and one night they had a board meeting on the other side of us, and people in the church, a board member, lived next door, and I'm out there roller skating around, and I see the board members start to drive up, and I went right to my front room carpet and all with my roller skates. Oh, my lamb. They'll think what a cuckoo preacher's wife she is. But at any rate, I admonish you this morning. You have those children such a short time. Be with them. Teach them. Play with them. Love them. You know, don't give them over to somebody else that's not going to love them as much as you do and not going to care as much for them as you do. Live without a few things. I know what it's like to live without, and I'll tell you it turns out to be a blessing. It really does. You who have learned to live without know what it is, and shake your head if you have. Isn't that neat? It really is. I told the kids one day, I said, We were never poor. We just didn't have money, you know, when Chuck was in the earlier ministry. We just didn't, but we had so much love. We had Jesus, and we dwelled in the kingdom of light, and boy, we could do all kinds of things as a family and really enjoy each other, and don't be conformed to the world to get out and fulfill yourself. Remember, it comes out of the kingdom of darkness, and it's a lie from Satan. Fulfillment never comes through pleasing yourself. It comes through sacrificing and walking with Jesus. Oh, how the world loves to lie to you about this. Quickly, I'm going to give you a few clues to conformity. You say, Well, Kate, I think I'm really walking with him. I don't think I'm conformed to the world. These are little checkpoints. Just think about them a minute. We're almost through. First of all, what do you really love? Breonna Peterson, how do you say her last name? Yoli? I think they told me last week. I don't say it quite right. It says in her book, Tomorrow You Die, that if those hours were her last hours on earth, what would she hate to leave behind the most? And I think it's something for you to think about, not your husband or children or your best friend or whatever, your boyfriend, whatever, but what things would you hate to leave behind? I always thought, What would I do in a fire? What would I take? We all think about this once in a while, I guess. And I always end up thinking, I want to take my kids' baby pictures. It just seems like it's the one thing that's irreplaceable. It's the one thing I think, Oh, I'd hate to leave behind. Not if Jesus came. Who cares? We're leaving it all. But what do you really love, first of all, in your life? Now, nobody knows but you and Jesus. So don't lie. This is a time for pure honesty before Him. And I want you to take these questions home. And I want you to put your hand on them. And I want you to say, God, show me exactly where I am. Okay, what do you really love doing? When you have a choice, when you have some free time, what do you like to do best of all? Does it come out of the kingdom of light or the kingdom of darkness? My parents, up until the time I was 11, were very, very spiritually minded. And this is not a criticism of them at all, but it'll sound that way, but I don't mean it that way. Up until the time I was 11, we did nothing on Sunday except go to church, come home and rest. I could read the funny paper and things like that, but no work, no anything. And one Sunday they decided to go to the beach. We had a flat tire on the way to the beach. And my mom and dad were saying, We should never have gone to the beach. It's a sin. We should never have gone to the beach. Oh, you know, flat tire. This is God's judgment. It's His punishment. And that was just ingrained in my mind. I thought, Boy, on Sunday I've got to be careful. And even when I didn't walk with the Lord, on Sunday I'd still feel guilty if I did anything, even though I wasn't a Christian at that time. And when I met Chuck, I went down to his house, and one Sunday afternoon we'd all gone to church and we came home and they all said, Let's go to the beach. And I go, Oh, the beach! And inside I'm going, Oh, I hope I don't have a flat tire. Oh, boy. And I really, you know. And we went to the beach and we had a super time. And Mom and Dad Smith used to love to walk on the beach every Sunday afternoon. They lived in San Anne and they'd go down and just, oh, they were both very, Mom especially, was very health-minded. And they'd walk along the beach, and I thought, Oh, I began to get a whole new set of values. Now, leisure isn't wrong, and going to the beach isn't wrong, and walking on the beach isn't wrong, but what do you like to do best of all in your leisure time? Do you like to do things that come out of the kingdom of light? Or do you indulge yourself in the things that come out of the kingdom of darkness? Think about it. And think about the things you do, and weigh them in that light. I could stand up here today and say, No, don't do this, and don't do that, and do do this, and it wouldn't fit with your life at all. And it wouldn't be the Holy Spirit's ministering directly to you. But we want Him to speak to your heart this morning. And there are things that you can do that I cannot do. And there are probably things that I can do that you can't do. Because your world and my world are different. Some people expect more out of you in a certain area than maybe they would expect out of me. I feel that Chuck and I do have a stronger responsibility. I feel that God's called us, and I feel we are very, very responsible to walk in a certain way as much as possible in this kingdom of light, and as carefully as possible, so that people looking at us wherever they see us can know that we're working and striving and loving God with all our hearts. Okay, what is your greatest delight? What really brings you joy and satisfaction? What do you just get all happy and stoked about? Oh, boy, is it a ten-carat diamond, or a Rolls Royce, or is it a soap opera? What's my clenched teeth? I mean, they don't bring that much delight to anybody I know. But what is your greatest delight? Can you take the Word of God and find a scripture and just be so rejoicing in Him? Or does it take something material? What's it take to really delight you? What brings you real joy and satisfaction? Is it a relationship with a certain person? And if that person were taken out of your life, all the joy and everything else would be gone out of your life? Think about what is your greatest delight. What are your goals? This is how some people in the Bible answered it. Philippians 3.10, Paul said, that I may know Him, that I may know Him. That was his goal, that I may know Him. And then he goes on about the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings. And then he said, Be made conformable unto His death. That's a walk, isn't it? That's a real walk with Jesus. That's living really pleasing to Him, to desire to be made conformable, not to the kingdom of Satan, but be made conformable to the death of Jesus Christ. No wonder he could say, I'm crucified to the world, and the world is crucified to me. It doesn't have any hold on me. David said, I shall be satisfied when I awake in His likeness. Doesn't that sound beautiful? When I read that to you this morning, oh Lord, when will I begin to look like you? I'll be satisfied when I awake in His likeness. Is that one of your goals today? To awaken in the likeness of Jesus? When we were on the plane with our Oriental friend the other day, his name was Jaira, he said that he went to Berkeley and he was surrounded by Caucasians, so much so that he began to think of himself as a Caucasian. And he said the strangest thing, he'd get up in the morning and look in the mirror and he'd say, where did that Chinaman come from? That's just what he said. And Chuck just doubled over. He thought that was the neatest thing. I mean, he was so used to seeing... You know, we are so used to seeing... Have you ever watched something and everybody was so beautiful on it that you thought you were beautiful and then you looked in the mirror and you went, oh no, that's me? Well, you know, as we behold Jesus and we gaze upon Jesus, the Word tells us that we are actually changed into His likeness. We become like Him. We do begin to look like Him. We have a quality about us that is like Him. David said, I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness. And then someone else in the Word said, I found the Word and it's a joy rejoicing in my heart. They found that the Word of God was just, oh, it was powerful and it was glorious, it was marvelous. Most of us have had the experience of finding a Scripture that the Holy Spirit just zeroed in on and it just made our day, it made our week, it made months, the rest of our life, that Scripture was so precious. It was the delight and joy of our heart. Job said, I have esteemed Thy Word more than my necessary food. And how we love to eat. And I love bad, bad hot fudge sundaes, and they must be Alley Kingdom darkness. Surely they are. I mean, anything that good. And sugary and I try to give them up. But I think how much I like hot fudge sundaes. And the Word of God is so much more desirable to me. So much more to me. I find His Word the joy and rejoicing in my heart. And when I'm driving in the car and all of a sudden the Scripture comes through my mind, I just feel like the car could just lift right off and take wings and just fly me on up into heaven with Him. Jesus, it was said of Him that He delighted to do the Father's will. He delighted. That was the greatest delight to do God's will. Is that your greatest delight today? You know, I believe that God allows crisis in our life to awaken us as Christians to what things we are being conformed to. I have stood by the bedside of people who were dying and been with their relatives and their family. Been with very, very powerful, famous people and stood there. And they have said, Oh, I'd give it all. I'd give it all up. Every jewel, every bit of fame, everything if this person could only live. And why didn't they do it years before? Chuck said that one of the most important parts of a funeral is it's a crisis time in the lives of people and they're confronted with death. And all of a sudden, the world's value system means nothing to them. Absolutely nothing. And they catch a tiny glimpse for just one moment of what this life is really all about. But you know, there are an awful lot of people that during the crisis, they give up everything and they catch a glimpse of the kingdom of light and all the wonder and all the freedom that's there. And after the crisis is over, they go right back to where they were. No growth, no conformity. It's just like they put the chains aside for a while and they go back and they pick up the chains and fetters and bind themselves all up again. The crisis wasn't used for what God wanted it to be used for. I personally believe, and I know this for a fact, this is truth in my own life, every single crisis I have ever gone through could have been used for my growth had I allowed it to be. Every single one. And I am learning more and more and more as I go on this path to welcome these things because they conform me more to the image of God and they release me more from the hold of the world on me. Is it true in your life? What did crisis do in your life?