In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of focusing on Jesus and loving others rather than being self-centered. He encourages listeners to reach out and help others, as this will bring beauty into their lives. The speaker also discusses the qualities of a virtuous woman, highlighting the importance of inner beauty and character. He concludes by emphasizing the significance of being a woman of God and how this can attract a godly man. The sermon references the story of Isaac and Rebecca from the Bible to illustrate these points.

This morning, I'm going to give you a double seminar, which I think is a very important seminar. The first one is on the purpose of dating, New Testament dating we call this. And also if we get time I'm going to try and pack in here how to find God's girl or guy for your life, which some of you may be vaguely interested in. About 500,000 couples split up for good every year. About 1,068,000 people split up for good in 1967 alone, which is the last time I took a spot check on this. And then in the last three years about 3,210,000 people have called it quits and broken up forever. One out of every three marriages ends in divorce in this country. And in San Francisco I used to have a pastor friend, he's now on the staff of Christianity Today. And he used to have his kids every week, what they'd do is this, is they'd take a census of the paper and they would list the number of divorces and the number of marriages. And he said last time he checked it, there were more divorces than there were marriages in San Francisco each week. About half a million kids are hurt every year from broken homes like this. And two-thirds of these kids are under ten. One half of the people who are now getting divorces are the children of divorced parents themselves. In 1953, 4,100,000 families were in this country with only a mother and no dad. Dad had split, gone one direction. But in 1966, which is a few years later, there were 7,000,000 families without a dad. So there's a real breakdown in the home. And each one of these families with these kids under ten that don't even know how to handle life yet are going to be hit and attacked by the problems of bitterness, bitterness in the home. And each one of the kids in the family that gets hurt by the world will want to whack back at the system. And maybe that's why at the end of this first little seminar we'll have had two murders, four rapes, 30 robberies, 180 burglaries. Goodness me. 120 last week. 90 cars stolen. And keep it going. It's going. You had it squealing there for a while. Maybe then, with all this kind of garbage, you can understand why God is somewhat concerned about love courtship and marriage. Now some brilliant people have come up with a very brilliant solution. And the solution is stupid. Marriages are so messy, why not can the whole thing? Why not even bother marrying people? That's brilliant. That's about as funny as a barbed wire hula hoop. There's another brilliant suggestion. We could make Tiny Tim the president or something like that. We want to talk about God's purpose in dating. We have more books on sex than we've ever had before available. More information on making love and more data on how to be a sexy swinger. It seems like we've left God out of all of this. It seems like we're also paying a price for that. Now, to hear some people talk, you'd think that God was against sex. You know, they figure, well, God is against sex. It just so happens that God invented sex. It's his idea, so he'd hardly be against it. But there are some things I don't think ought to be made the subject of meal time conversations. Don't usually go up to friends and say, Hi, how's your underwear or what deodorant do you wear or something like this. You know, there's some things which you don't bother. If you ask a girl what her age is, you deserve to get a sock in the eye. There are some things like that. Sex is one of these. It's a precious part of life. Like a diamond brooch, you don't usually use it to open cans or something like that. Special times when it's to be used. And I think this is one of the special times. Sex is like a fire. We ought to talk about this because it's a big problem with a lot of kids. Now, if I come to your place and I put a fire in the living room, the fire can do two things. Number one, it can warm up that living room. See, and it's cool. Have you ever had a fire when it's been rainy? You know, all the rains come down and it's cold outside and freezing and you have a big old crackly fire in the fire. Isn't that a cool thing? You've got a sheepskin rug or something and sit in front of that fire. That is the coolest thing, to have a fire. It's really good. But if you go to sleep on that sheepskin rug and you forget to put a cover on the front of the fire, a little spark comes and lights in the sheepskin rug and then also catches the curtains that are on the side of the wall. The ashes you wake up in in the morning may be your own. And that same fire can burn. Now notice, the fire does not change its character. It doesn't become blue and grow claws and go, ah, ah, ah, ah, when it's burning you. It's the same fire. The same fire that warms you is the fire that burns the house down. The only difference is this. In one case, the fire is under control. It is within limits. In the second case, it's out of control. If you like, in one place it's right place and right time. In the second place it's wrong place, wrong time. There's the difference. Most marriages wreck up because of two things. People light the fire too early or too soon and they light it in the wrong place. And that's why I call the little pink tract in the back dreams and flames because that's precisely what sex. It gets out of control, can neutralize it, can burn them. Now we're going to talk very briefly about some basic differences here. I'm not going to give you a lecture on sex. You can ask your biology teacher. He'll probably give you one. Tell you about birds and bees. I don't like talking about birds and bees. God made us different. Bible tells us a woman was taken from Adam's side and she's been close to him ever since, never far from his heart. There are some physical differences. Most of you understand these. I'm not going to get into these. But you know that the guy is usually bigger and stronger. Usually. I know there's exceptions. There is the girl who's taken karate and she has a black belt in judo, you know. Tilt any little weed that comes around. I know the girl who throws horses over her shoulder and runs around the field. You know, there are differences. But usually the guy is stronger. That doesn't mean to say that the guy grows up as fast as the girl. From about zero to twelve, the girls usually beat the guys in development. They grow up very, you know, fast. And they especially mature earlier. And about twelve to sixteen, the guys start catching up. About twelve, a lot of girls are interested in their teachers and that. About twelve, most guys are interested in running with the gang, you know, and beating each other up and stuff like that. Girls, who is that thing over the road? That's a girl. Oh, really? You know. About zero to twelve, then the girls lead off. About twelve to sixteen, the guys catch up. From sixteen on, it's neck and neck. And that's half the problem, of course. That's why we're having a seminar this morning. Because the guys usually don't grow up fast. Because when the guys do grow up, they get strong and, you know, hairy chest and all that stuff. But for a while there, the girls lead off. And this girl can get you into trouble. Because usually the only guys you're interested in dating, then, is you may still have a, a girl, you may have a woman's body, but you may wind up still with a teeny bopper's mind, see. Running around, trying to find older guys, you know. And that can get you into trouble, because some guys know things like this. And they can really get you into trouble. All right. That's the physical thing. There's physical differences here. There are some mental differences, too. Mental differences. Mental differences are the things we talked about yesterday. Guy thinks like an IBM machine. Girl thinks like an ESP machine. It's different. Guy thinks in logical sequence. Click, click, click, click, click, ding, ding. Girl thinks like this. A-ja, a-ja, a-ja, a-ja. That's the way she thinks. In other words, the guy has a sort of a neatly little ordered filing cabinet mind that everything must go in in order to find the next step. Girl, on the other hand, is the center of happening. Here's a girl, see. She happens in all directions, see. Picks up information from all over and goes, and she puts all that together. Guy can never understand how the girl can get from here to here to here to there to there and still get it right. But usually she does. You can tell the difference here, because a girl is sort of, see, God has given us two totally different things. A guy, because of this sort of filing cabinet mind, is designed to lead. A girl, because of her ESP type thing, is designed to inspire. That's the basic two purposes in sex, in dating. Lead and inspire. Now, let's see. I'll give you an illustration of this. Here's a girl and a guy, and they're going to buy a house someplace. So they come into an empty plot of land. It's empty, nothing there. The girl, because of her ESP type thing, she sees the whole house, see. She goes all over the place building a house. Oh, we can put the kitchen here. We can do this, see. She builds a whole thing, and the guy's going, kitchen, what kitchen? He can't even see a floor there. He can't see anything at all. See, the girl is able to get the big picture and get it fast. That's her. She gets the big picture. That's why so many girls who are married harp on their husbands. They know what their husbands could do. Now, her husband doesn't know he can do all that stuff, see. That's why you're a dummy. You can do all kinds of things. You know, why couldn't you be like so and so? And that really bothers him up, because he doesn't want to be like so and so. He wants to be like himself. But see, girls have been designed like this. Tell me what the girl's thinking now. Though she can see the whole wall, she can't see the bricks that go to make up the wall. Can you see the difference? No, but she sees the whole wall. She says, well, it's simple. You just build a wall there. The guy with his IBM mind comes along and puts a brick here. Oh, yes, the wall. Yes, I see, you know. He can draw up the plans, though. She doesn't know how to draw the plans up. She doesn't, you know, well, I don't know. Send that to somebody else. But she can see the whole house. The only problem with the girl's kind of thinking is she ought not to be the one who built the house, because in her ESP way, she might miss the fact that if you build a house like that, you might just have it, you know, the guy comes along and he says, what you got here? There's a kitchen. What's in the bathroom? Well, you can't put that exactly there because there'll be a pipe running right up through the center of the house. Oh, really? You know, I never thought of that. See? In other words, the guy gets the little details and the girl doesn't. Now, I've noticed something about girls in my study of girls over all these years. And the noticing is this. A girl never asks herself, does that make sense? She says, what do I feel like? She says, do I feel like that's the right thing? And she invariably says that and does it. You girls, you really do. You say, do I feel good about this? It must be right. And you go ahead and do it. See? The guy, on the other hand, says, hmm, does that make sense? Does that fit together? Click, click, click, click, click. See? This whole difference between the way of feeling is the difference between, you know, Anyway, you can tell if a guy comes up with his little IBM click, click, click mind, he doesn't feel things as strongly as girls do sometimes. Somebody comes up and says, hi, Fink. And he says, hmm, call me a Fink. Say that to a girl. Hi, Fink. Four years later, she still remembers. That's the girl that called me a Fink. I remember her. Deep, deep, deep feeling. Now, a guy, because of his IBM type thing, his life goes like this, bizarre, bizarre, bizarre, bizarre, bizarre, bizarre, bizarre. See? Ups and downs, but like that. A girl, because of her ESP type life, goes like this, bizarre, bizarre. I have some junior high school girls write to me every now and then. Oh, I have this terrible problem, this great tragedy, you know. I say, how old are you? I'm 14. Oh. Write to me next week. Yeah, you know, it's all over now. I'm really happy. Praise the Lord. I'm swinging on chandeliers. Right, right. See? I know that it's going to change. Now, why has God, I know God must have started the thing that led to woman's liberation. See, he's just doing nasty things, putting men up there, and they've got no right to be bosses. That's right, they haven't. But they have. They're supposed to be leaders, and I'll show you why they're supposed to be leaders. They're supposed to be leaders for one reason. It's nobody wants to follow this. And what God's pattern is, is to blend these two lives, which are both superior in their own place. Girl is superior in inspiration, a guy is superior in leadership. It's not a question of which one is superior of the other. It's a question of which is superior in their own place. God tries to harmonize these two ways, so you get this kind of thing. See, the guy, he's kind of dull and blobby without an inspiration here often. So, you know, that makes him a lot happier. And the girl kind of gets, ah, you know, without some kind of steady influence. Girl is not designed to handle some of the things. She smashes her car into garage, she runs inside, tells her husband, Oh, I smashed the car into somebody's car. Guy comes beating on the door, Where is that dumb woman? The husband comes out and says, Hey, talk to me. I'm the husband, see. That's the way it's supposed to be. Girl's not supposed to handle all those rotten things that IBM computers can. Now, the reason why God has designed this IBM thing to lead the ESP is because ESP people can often get fooled. They really can. Do you remember the girl in the garden called Eve? The Bible tells us she was fooled. Is it on? It is. It's on. Praise the Lord. That's cool. I hate running out of a microphone in my hand. The, uh, freedom. The girl in the garden by the name of Eve was really fooled. She really thought, you know, Yeah, this snake makes sense. He really does, you know. It feels right, she says. Boom. She ate the fruit, got her husband into trouble and herself and the whole world. Now, you know what happened here? I want you guys to notice this. Don't you go running up and say, Yeah, Eve, you dummy. Where was her husband during this time? Somewhere swinging on a hammock in the garden? While the snake was talking to his wife? No. You know what the Bible says? She took and she ate and gave it to her husband who was with her. Now, what was Adam doing? He was standing around there twiddling his toes saying, Hmm, I wonder if it does really kill people. You know, he did, you know what he did? He gave up his leadership. Instead of stepping in and saying, Listen, don't trust this snake. It's got sneaky eyes. He didn't do that. He just stood back and, You know, I wonder if he's going to die, you know. Well, he didn't seem to die. He said, I don't mind, I'll eat it too. What a snake, says Adam out there. So understand, the girl can get fooled unless she has a guy to protect her. So I said to you, girl, you're going to get a boyfriend at all. You'd better get a boyfriend who knows how to pray for you. And if your boyfriend doesn't care enough about you to pray for you, then you'd better get rid of him as quickly as possible. God has designed a man to be a protecting, Larry Christensen's word, a protecting umbrella over the mind of the girl. Every girl ought to have some man who prays for her, whether it's a deacon in your church, or whether it's a father who's a Christian, or whether it's a guy who is a child of God. So I'm going to give you quickly and rapidly here, before we go on to finding God's girl or guy for your life, I'm going to give you a couple of simple rules here, called for many years of experience in matchmaking and things. Here's the first set of rules, and it's for the guys. You girls can write them down if you like. This is how guys ought to be leaders for God, and I call this rules for growing hair on your chest. These are some essential things which you ought to do. One, get smart. Nothing to do with Maxwell here. The Bible tells us in understanding, do men. And I tell you, this is secrets here, you guys. Girls appreciate having smart guys that know the right things to, you know, face. Girls like to come up to a girlfriend and say, hello, this is my IBM computer, you know, and you ask him a question, he'll tell you some answers. Now you may be dumb, but really work on it hard, you guys. A woman hates to be able to, you know, go and say to her husband, what job are you looking into? Well, I'd better decide. You know, that's a horrible thing. If you're going to lead, you'd better make some decisions. You don't have to be strong if you're smart. There was a moth flying through the air with a lady moth, and you're trying to impress the lady moth. Down to one of these big high-rise buildings, New York State building, you know, in New York, and the man moth said to the lady moth, do you see this building? I could blow it over, poof, with one puff. She said, oh, really? And the wise man was listening. He said, come here, moth. The moth went down there, plop, plop, plop, plop. You know, the lady moth stayed up there, plop, plop, plop, plop. And the wise man said, why did you say that? And he said, why? He said, why did you say I could blow over that building with one puff? He said, you know you can't do that. Why did you say that? He said, why? And he said it to impress her. The wise man said, don't do it. Moth said, no. Lady moth said, what did he say? Well, he advised me not to do it. He said, darling, a cunning moth that was. Here's number two. Get a sport. The Bible tells us that bodily exercise does profit a little. Not another tremendous much, but it profits a little. The reason why you ought to get a sport, the Bible's filled with all kinds of illustrations about sports and running, and Paul says, I keep under my body and I do all kinds of things like this. Some of you, I don't think you could, couldn't run from the top of this building to the bottom without having a fat attack. Now, you really do have to work on this. Get yourself a sport. Most girls like to have somebody they can lean on a bit. And a sport teaches you a little bit of, even if you're going to be the yoga champion of your block, get a sport, all right? A girl came up to somebody. Now, sometimes if you're really smart, you don't need a sport, but there's only sometimes. A guy came to a girl. He said, I'd like to marry you. She said, that's impossible. I promise I'd never marry anybody except an athlete. He thought for a while. He said, I'm an athlete. She said, what do you mean you're an athlete? He said, I'm a high jumper. She said, you're a high jumper? I've never seen you high jump. He said, yeah, I can jump higher than this building. She said, what? You're crazy. This building is 19 stories high. He said, yeah, but how high can it jump? Please. I'm going to let you in on a secret, you guys. If you behave like an inconsiderate slob, you deserve to be treated like one. And another secret is this. Most girls that I have met do not mind being treated like princesses. And the scripture says, be courteous to one another, kindly, affectionate, and love serving one another. And I think that's a good summing up of being a gentleman. You learn to do that. You might think it's cool to rush up, club your girlfriend to death, drag her along by the hair, but... Here's the fourth one. Don't tell lies. Boys have to put that in. The Bible tells us speaking the truth in love. Speaking the truth in love. Now let me tell you girls some of the lines that boys will give you. I have to tell you these, and you guys are not to take notes at this time. Because you girls are designed like ESPs, you feel and you do not think sometimes. So if you feel good, you figure it must be right. But guys can't design a series of lines to make girls feel good when it certainly isn't right. And here are some of them. The first one is this, it's called poor little you. It goes like this. You poor little thing. Nobody's ever understood you. Your mother didn't understand you. Your father didn't understand you. Your big sister didn't understand you. Your grandmother never understood you. Your relatives didn't understand you. None of your friends understand you. But I understand you. That's that one, girls. That's number one. Number two is this, poor little me. Nobody's ever understood me. My mother never understood me. My father never understood me. My relatives never understood me. And you think, oh, you poor little thing, you know, this appeals to girls' mothering instinct. She may well wind up a mother, too. There's all kinds of sneaky ones, and I'll give you girls a complete list afterwards. One of them is, I'm going to Vietnam to give my life for my country. What are you giving? Oh, there's all kinds of sneaky ones. But that's that, you know. Guys want practice, woman, you know. You had practice? All kinds of things here. Don't tell lies. No liar from the kingdom of God. No such a thing as a Christian liar. Five. Five is be a man of God. I'll tell you something about real girls who are worth marrying. They look for guys who are worth marrying. And if they're Christian girls, they look for the best Christian guy they could lay their hands on, and don't blame the mother. Why shouldn't they have the most sold-out Christian guys they can find? So if you want to find the best kind of girl, then you be the best kind of man you can be. Be God's man. I want one thing. On my tombstone, here lies a man of God. That's all. I want to be known as God's man, as belonging to Him. The Scriptures tell us that you are a man of God. Flee these things. Flee all these immoralities. And follow after the things that God asks us to follow after. The reason why you ought to be a man of God is if you learn to take instructions from Jesus, if you're willing to learn from Him, and if you're willing to obey, then you'll be a good follower of Christ. And if you learn to follow Jesus, then you'll be a good leader of your wife. A man who's never learned to take orders from anybody never makes a good leader, because he's too bossy. And a lot of guys figure that being a leader in the Bible means being a dictator, and that's precisely what it does not mean. Jesus is not a dictator. He is Lord. He is King. But He is a Lord of love. You learn from Jesus. If you're a man of God, you'll know what Jesus is like. And if you'll be like Jesus, and your life is changed step by step into His image, you'll be a good kind of companion for some girl who wants to be treated the way God wants to treat her. A bunch of girls have been sitting there and saying, Jerry, that's two. Brother, suck it, too. I don't really need this. Boy. Girls' turn now. Let me tell you girls some secrets about God. First, girls, if you're smart, then show it. I'm not asking you to put on any dumb blonde acts or dumb brunette, dumb ready-to-hit acts. You don't have to do that. But if He asks you to go and look at the stars, then please don't point out Sirius P3 in the galactic buses. Remind me of Charlie Brown, you know. He's going to have talks in the morning, you know. He'll ask, Lucy, what you talking about? I'm talking about the, you know, the relationship of pleasant to the substance of the thing. He says, oh, I was going to talk about my doggy. Really. If you're really smart, girls, then show it. Secondly, very simple rules. Don't gab. Some girls do not know how horribly blast off guys get when a girl goes, that really bothers them, no end. There's something about a girl that doesn't say very much, just smiles a lot and listens a lot, that really impresses a guy, no end. Now, I don't mean to say nothing, you know. You say, what can I talk about, for goodness sake? You really want to know something? He would love you to talk about, ask him questions about himself. He really is an authority on that. There was one girl sitting down talking with a guy, she talked for four hours. Finally starts yawning, looking at his watch, finally, and she says, she noticed something. She suddenly gets intelligent. Oh, she says, let's not talk about me anymore. Let's talk about you. What do you think of my new dress? See? Be fragile. Now, I know, you may be tough, you know. You know, you know, if you do have a black belt in karate, at least, look fragile. You see, there's something in a guy's heart that wants to rush over and immediately protect the fragile piece of, you know, whatever, pretty china or whatever, even if it is only china. See this? And so, if at a particular time, you know, he feels like Tarzan, then you rush over, pull his chair up, let him stand there, go, like this, and he stand up there, oh, wow, you know, that. See? The fragile thing will bring out the leadership thing in him. See? You're pretty independent, you don't really need anybody around, you know, you can take care of yourself, thank you very much. See? I have a funny feeling in that pickup kind of guy who likes to take care of people. Here's another one that's interesting. Dress and look like a woman. That sounds funny, doesn't it? Why do you say that? Well, the reason I say that is most normal guys do not marry boys. That's why. There's a reason for it. So, you know, at least try to make a distinction between the guy and the girl when you dress. You guys too, you know? God does really want some opposites in society, so don't mix it up too long. There's a guy standing by a bus, there's a pretty blonde there beside him, and he saw this girl or something walking down the road. He didn't know what it was. It looked like a girl. He wasn't sure, I think. And he nudges his blonde, and he says, what is this? What is that? He says, I can't tell you what I dressed today. He says, tell me, what do you think that thing is walking down there? Do you think that is a girl or do you think that is a boy? The blonde said, that's easy, it's a girl. He says, how can you tell so easy? I could never tell from this distance. The blonde said, that's easy, I'm the father. So, you've got to make a difference here. God is very bothered if people don't make a difference. You say, how in fact do you look like a woman? Well, I'll give you some clues. One, be clean. Your girlfriend isn't clean, you guys. Send her a gift wrap and some scopes from the Green Phantom. All right? Secondly, be simple. Be simple. I can tell a girl who really wants attention, she dresses like a freak. Key, simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. Be like a child in your mother's arms. In your dress. Simple, simple, simple. And then thirdly, be sensible. Don't follow the fads just because everybody is wearing bananas on their head. Don't you wear bananas on your head. All right? Here's the last one. Be a woman of God. There is nothing more beautiful and mind-blowing than a girl in love with God. You girls really want to draw the kind of guy that is worth marrying then be God's kind of woman. And I'll tell you something about love. If you give your love first and wholly to God, whether you ever get a boyfriend or not, let your love for others be an overflow of the love you have for God. And you'll know what it means. And that beautiful verse in Scripture says they looked into him and were lightened. And you know what the translation says? They looked into him and were radiant. I've met a lot of beautiful people in my life. And they've all been in the beautiful, not out of beautiful. The remainder of this message is on side two. All right. How many can stick out the next 15 minutes when we talk to you about how to find God's girl or guy for your life? You haven't got into the dangers yet of this. This is just the purpose. All right. Do you think that God is interested about you finding God's girl or guy for your life? Or do you think he's got no interest at all? Absolutely not interested. Well, do you know there's a whole chapter in the Bible that tells you how to find God's girl or guy for your life? A whole chapter. Really. Find it in Genesis chapter 24. Genesis chapter 24. Look it up. If you've bought the other half of your Bibles this morning. I'll teach you not to listen to Bob in the last session. Genesis 24. Write this thing up. Finding God's girl or guy for your life. Now, the spiritual ones in here will want to spiritualize this chapter, so I'll give you some things to spiritualize it with. Abraham is the father. The servant is the servant. Isaac is the son. Rebecca is the bride. And the camel is the child. Abraham represents the father. Servant represents the Holy Spirit. Isaac represents the son. Rebecca is the bride. Christ and camel is the child. All right. That's the spiritual side. Now let's deal with the practical side, which I think the book was written for. Here are some principles of finding God's girl or guy for your life. The first one is this. Abraham is old and he's well stricken with age. And they had a cool way of dating in those days. The dad would make the choice. Isn't that a good way to date, you know? Dad, he's been around. He knows what kind of wife is good in that, and he figures, I'll get this one now. You figure that's the way we do it. Like, she's her own. Well, the principles are the same. Abraham said to his servant, listen, I'm getting old and well stricken with age. And he said, I want you to go and find a wife for my son. And here's the first principle. He said, I make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you shall not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell. So your first principle is this. Don't date Canaanites. What is a Canaanite? A Canaanite is a selfish person. They call themselves Christians or not. The word Christian is a very Mickey Mouse word today to a lot of people. Christian means you live in the United States of America and you believe in the mother and the flag and apple pie. Not in the Bible. Christian is a man or a woman who has given up their selfishness and given up their sinning. Don't date selfish people. I know it's hard to find them, but they'll come. Praise the Lord. David Wilkerson is in a rally. The girl comes up and says, I've got a problem. I can't pray. David said, so really, do you love Jesus? She said, yes. Had a boyfriend? Yes. Do you love Jesus? No. Who do you love most, he said, Jesus or your boyfriend? You're just trying to trick me, he said. After David gets finished with it, she says, well, you're right. I've been trying to hold on to God and my boyfriend too, and he's not even decent. Now you can, I would say to you that about 80% of most kids probably start in a dating relationship. You have a lifestyle and bitterness, and dating gets you like a bomb going off, and bitterness gets you like acid over a long period of time. But those are the number two. And yet the funny thing is, every time I ask for questions, I never get questions on dating. So this is a really deep, closed area, and most kids don't ask questions about it, but we sure need some preaching on it, because those ones don't date Canaanites. I'll tell you why. Canaanite love, she looks like this. Canaanite love, at most, is only puppy love, which is the prelude to a dog's life. You girls, if you insist on dating Canaanites, don't be surprised if they treat you like a dog. A dog is something to pet and something to play with, but certainly not to marry. Don't date Canaanites. Now let me show you something here. This is something that you look at here. Let's see now. Can I borrow you for a second here? She's going to borrow somebody. I always have to borrow somebody every morning. Would you come here? I want you to stand on that chair there. Listen, I'm going to marry this guy, and I'm going to save him. I'll get him saved. You know, I'll date him and I'll learn to Jesus. That's cool, girls. That's a cool idea. I want you to put me up there in the chair up there with you. Put me up there. See, you're higher than me. You can pull me up. That's pretty easy, isn't it? You know, let me ask you this question, girls. Which is the easiest thing for you to do, you being an ESP and me being an IBM? Which is the easiest thing? Me designed stronger, so you didn't know how to say the right things. Which one do you think is easier for you to do? For her to pull me up or for me to pull her down? There you go. Thank you, honey. I appreciate it. That's good. Don't you forget it. When I was nine years old, I fell in love. This girl, she's like Cinderella and Snow White and everybody older. I was sad because she was 24 and I was hoping she would wait for me. I got old enough to marry her and then she got engaged to another guy. She wasn't a Christian but my mother got saved about that time and my mother started witnessing to her and finally this girl gave her life to Christ. She looked beautiful before. She really looked beautiful now. I was very impressed. I used to hang around in the shop every evening. She started getting a hassle with her fiancé. She was engaged to him. She was kind of an all around nice guy. He smoked about 16 packs a day and put about three or four cartons of beer a day. He was the life of the party. Ha ha always telling jokes. Good looking dude. He was that kind of guy. He was nice guy. He was a nice guy. He was a nice guy. He was nice a nice guy. He was a nice guy. He was a nice guy. He was nice guy. He was a nice He was a nice guy. He a nice guy. He was nice He was a nice guy. He was a nice guy. He was a guy. He was nice guy. He was a nice guy. He was They come before the Lord, they say, Oh Lord, I'm a young man who really loves you, I really am. And I want a girl. I'll take anybody you want, Lord. Oh my goodness. And they had this horrible picture of God. God is sitting up there going, What did you say? What did you say? Did you say anybody? Are you sure? You know. Bloody, I have this lady, she's 99 years old. She's been praying for years. Amen. She says, I want a girl. She's at the end of every prayer. You know, she's been praying. That's the very one I'm good for. You're a sucker. That'll teach you to trust me. What a horrible picture of God. Listen, I believe two things about God. I believe that God is really wise. And God is love. And I know if God makes choices for people, he always makes that which is on the highest happiness. The first thing that will make you happy, that will make them happy, will make him happy. And you can trust me. God is smart. He knows how to pick people. He doesn't say, What's the ugliest one, the one that you'll never be able to live with for the rest of your life? That's the one I'm going to give you, you suck asses. That's a dumb picture of God. If you can trust God with your salvation, for goodness sake, can't you trust him? Somebody to marry? No, it's always the same. When you're not a Christian, you look on the outside, you say, I can't see their dumb stuff. Praying, singing, and reading the Bible. They're dumb. No, they're not. You know, it looks rotten from the outside in, see, and in the same way when you're not trusting God. You say, Look, I can pick better ones than God in the all day. I don't know what I'm doing. Boy, some of the kids, you know, and there are some funny ways that God has spoken to some people about sending the right kind of person along. One guy is a missionary. He just graduated from Bible college. He opens up this magazine, he reads, he says, he's been praying, Lord, I need a wife. I've got to do mission field work with a wife, and I've got to have a good wife, see. He's praying, Lord, give me a beautiful girl who I can marry. Opens up this missionary magazine, he sees this girl, Miss Snowhead, getting off a boat. He looks at that girl and he says, Wow, that's the one I want there. Right, that one there. Lord, this and this, see. Nice girl. Wow, she looks nice, you know. So anyway, what does he do? He trusts the Lord. He cuts a little piece out of the magazine. He flies all the way down, which is his field of endeavor, you know, and he gets a job on this boat that he'd seen the girl on. She must have been living around that area. So he's pulling up and down on this boat, praising the Lord, waiting for the Lord to... And eventually he has this vision, standing on the bank, waiting to get her monthly trip down the river into this place that she's working at. And he gets out in the middle of the river, pulling along, see. And there he opens this little crushed piece of paper. He says, Is this you? She says, Yeah, that's me. He says, You're Miss Sunshine. She says, Yes. He says, You know, isn't that marvelous? He said, It is. He said, Oh, that's wonderful. I was praying in Bible college, and he said, Don't call me to the mission field. I was saying, Well, I really need somebody to go with me to the mission field. I really like a really pretty girl. And he says, I open up the paper and you never guess who I saw. I saw the exact kind of person I'd really like to marry. She says, Oh, well, I'm sorry. She says, That's impossible. I'm engaged. He said, Oh. I said, I'm thinking this is guidance. But he said, Well, praise the Lord. And he gets whole instinct. He's a bit disappointed, of course, but he thought, That's funny. I was pretty sure there was such a thing. So he's pulling up and down the river. You never guess what happened. This girl's boyfriend left her for some other girl. Came. She's coming back on the river all lonely. And guess who was there pulling up, praising the Lord. She says, Oh, I saw my boyfriend. Crying a lot. So they're one of the happiest couples on the mission trail. Isn't that a real thing? God has to know. I don't suggest you immediately rush out and get missionary magazine. Check through the current issue of New Wine to see what's in the pickings. I don't suggest you do that. I know Ted Smith. Ted Smith, the pianist in the Billy Graham team. He came into a church. He started playing piano. Young lady sitting right in the front seat. She said, I want that one. Lord, that one right there. Now, he wasn't Ted Smith of the Billy Graham team. He was just a young pianist at that time. Christian pianist. She said, I want that one. Prayed for him for four years. Lord, pray for that guy. He didn't even know what to embarrass him. He came back four years later to the church. Sat down and started to play. Looked at this absolutely radiant angel sitting right there in the front row. He said, Oh, I've never seen... Here's your chance, man. You're shot down in flames. Dated her a couple of times later. He proposed to a woman. That's what she said. Praise the Lord. Those things. Here's another thing about this. Here's Isaac. He sets off on his camel. He arrives there. Pulls his camel up to a halt. Changes the feed bags on the camel. Then he's out there wondering. Somebody needs to give his camel a drink. And he asks the obvious question. He says, how can I recognize this girl? Well, I'll tell you one of the signs you can recognize this girl or this guy. That's just about it. If it's a girl, she must be beautiful. Bible tells us Rebekah was very fair to look upon. That's a great relief. And if it's a guy, he must be good looking. Right? Some guy rubbed him to Ann Landers and he said, I have a problem. Why do girls always close their eyes when I kiss them? And Landers wrote back, send me a picture and I might be able to tell you. She must be beautiful and must be good looking. She must be good looking. One girl wrote to a guy, been writing for two years, and he said, look, I never had your picture. Send me a picture. She sent him a picture. She scribbled on the back, sorry, but this picture doesn't do me justice. He wrote back, you don't need justice. You need mercy. I'm telling you this. She must be beautiful. He must be good looking, at least to you. At least to you. At least to you. Because you see, you're going to have to spend the rest of your life with this person. That's why. Well, he adopted a guy. He was an evangelist. He, now whether to marry this fantastic piano player or this really lovely girl that he really liked, you know. Finally decided, well, I've been to ministry, might as well marry a piano player and a singer rather than this other pretty girl, you know. Bit of a dummy. Bit of taking a pretty girl and teaching her how to play the piano and sing, you know. So he married this piano player and singer. One day he woke up. Looked at his wife. He said, honey, wake up and sing quickly. You just, now understand. Beautiful and good looking. Some of you are giving up now. You're stopping taking notes. You're saying, blah. This is the end of the world for me. I'm not good looking. What a rat, see. Tell you something, you know the most beautiful person in the Bible? Not beautiful this way, but beautiful this way. His name is not Jesus. His name is Lucifer. Do you understand? Beauty is not Jesus. I hope you girls live long, long years. I hope you live so long, your teeth will fall out and you'll wrinkle up like a prune. And I hope you guys live a long time. Can you hang around? No, I really hope you live a long time. You ought to understand this though. Your physical beauty will not last forever like your spiritual beauty will. Some of you are looking at your body. You say, what a garbage body I have. You get up in the morning, blah, looking at this thing. Cheer up. Cheer up. You see, God is only using that body of yours as a frame to do some painting in. He's painting a picture inside that frame of you and that's the beautiful thing he's looking for, see. And understand, in the Bible you're going to get a new frame one of these days. See, the inside picture, if somebody came up and saw that master painting and they said, wow, what a cool frame that is. What would that do to the painter? Poor human says, nobody can see me because they can see me. They don't know who I am because of this. He's mad. Do you see this? In other words, the real you is important. So I challenge you, if you really want to be beautiful, that's the frame. The picture isn't painted yet, see. When the picture gets painted, God will tear that old frame off and give you a brand new frame to match the picture. If you want to be beautiful, start inside. Simple little thing. Beauty comes like this. Jesus first. That is next to self-love. That's beauty. Forget about yourself. Start concentrating on loving Jesus and loving other people. Reach out, help. You watch what happens in your life. I met a lot of beautiful people and they're not always pretty. They are beautiful. You list. See what God's characteristics of a beautiful girl are in Proverbs. You can find a virtuous woman. Christ is above everything. Now, quickly, friends. Hurry up. Move on. Must be beautiful. Must be good looking. You know what William Birch said to God? Oh God, make all my children ugly. Make the men and women of God. Boy, they really shook the world up. Here's the last one. Here's a guy and this is verse 14. I don't know what number. One, two, three, four. Is it four? He's standing there asking the obvious question. How am I going to recognize this girl when she comes out? How will I know her? See? I just say, hey girl, girl, girl. Here's, can she water camels? That was his little thing. He said, Lord, this girl comes up and she's not only willing to give me a drink of water, but she's willing to give water to my camels too. Then I'll know it's the right one. Up comes this beautiful girl. He says, could you give me a drink of water? She said, certainly sir, and I'll get you some for your camels also. Praise the Lord. Very good one, see? Can she water camels? What do you mean by can she water camels? What do I mean? I mean that you must marry somebody who's willing to make it. Mean, marry somebody who's willing to work at it. You see, marriage is something that only begins with a ring and a vow. It takes a lifetime to put together. And love is not romance. Romance comes and goes. See, somebody said romance begins when you sink in his arms. Romance ends with your arms in the sink. Sometimes the girls read all these, you know, I fell into his arms, the stars exploded and all this. You know, that is cool, you know. Stars sometimes explode. Supernovas every now and then. But the key here, I would do this. You guys, here's some things that will help you over the romantic love thing. Go and look at her mother. See? And ask yourself, all right, what makes you look like that in so many years' time? You know, that will help you break down the romantic. And you girls, you look at his father, you know, and say to yourself, well, what does he look like, man, you know? See, that will really help the romantic thing. It really will. It will help you come down to reality. And then, how do you know whether she can water camels? Well, here's a suggestion. You guys, if you want to know whether your wife can water camels, you know, sneak into her room one time when she's not around and just have a look around. And ask yourself, would a very good watering camel place there is that kind of place that I'd like to have around my house. And you girls, you check sometimes. See if that guy has learned to love and trust God. See whether he's willing to take care of things. Whether he's a big old Stephen Strick, goes around and throws his money around and wastes it on Coca-Colas every night. Whether he saves up to buy something worthwhile for you. You girls say, whether he just has a last-minute bid on her or rushes out and buys you a box of candy off the dime store. You know, just think carefully about this character. Girls, I like the kind of people who can water camels. All right? Here's the last thing, hurriedly, rapidly. Verse 21. Had to wait around for a while there before the girl finally came. Recognized her immediately, but he had to wait quite a while before the time came. So wait for God's time. David Wilkerson said, Lust can only wait ten minutes, but love can wait ten years. God has called you to marry. He will bring your teammate when you're ready. But understand, there is work to be done in both of your lives. So don't get ahead of God's timing. Sometimes you may recognize somebody and say, that's the one I'd like to marry. And maybe years before that thing finally clicks in, see? But you must do this. You must put yourself at God's disposal to such a point that you're willing to marry nobody, if God asks so. And sometimes you're not willing to come to that point, and that's why you never find God's vision. You say, all right, God, I've decided I'm going to be married when I'm... I don't want to be a teenage sprinster anymore, so by the time I get to be 90, I'm going to be married off. That's cool, and I've decided. Now, God, you tell me which one's going to be. I've already decided. What you have to do is this. You come to God and you say, I want to love you more than anything else in the world. Whether I have a boyfriend or a husband, or whether I have a girlfriend or a wife, I want to put you first in my life. And when you make that surrender, you watch what's going to happen. Are you willing to trust God with this? I am. I trust God with that. Trust not in boyfriend or girlfriend. I'm going to do that myself, because I can't trust God with that. He's just too sneaky. He probably put something rotten on me. I know there's somebody you could grab and marry and make it for the time being with. There's always somebody that you could marry. I think of a young man in Bible college. At the end of Bible college, there's a little routine they had. They proposed by giving the girl a corsage. That's the way they did it, see. He bought the most expensive corsage in the history of the Bible college. Came to this girl that he'd been going with for a year. He gave it to her. She said, that's very sweet of you, but I can't accept it. He said, why? She said, well, I don't know. You're very nice, but I just don't think you're the kind of person I could marry. He said, why not? She said, I thought you said you loved me. I really care about you. We've been going for a whole year. She said, yeah, but, well, you're kind of immature. You're drifty. You're irresponsible. He said, what do you think I'm doing in this Bible college? She said, I'm studying to be an evangelist. She said, an evangelist. What kind of wife is an evangelist? I want a husband who'll be with me all the time. I want a family and kids. I don't want to be a wife of an evangelist. Poor guy, he was crushed, you know. The Lord had called him to be an evangelist. So he went out and picked it up. There was no hope for evangelists. He had his blouse in his hands. He walked out of the golf course crying. And then he said, I'm going to throw the whole thing in. Man, might as well not call myself a Christian anymore. Might as well not, you know, run around all over the golf course. And finally he took him. What have I done, man? I said to God, I'll serve you. I'll follow you whatever the cost. And some girl is going to give me up that I've known for a year. And now I'm going to throw the whole thing over. Where's my heart at? Started to cry. Got before God and he made a vow. He said, I've determined no girl, no career, no talent will ever come between you and your calling on my life. Strings woke him up in the morning. Pages of his Bible were stuck to his face. Tears and he said, do you have heaven? He said, get up. Got up off his knees and went on to study. Because his calling God had in his life. Somewhere across the United States that girl probably keeps house this morning. She probably has a house full of kids. I don't know her. Wash a dish or some place this morning. I suppose she's doing that. I wonder if she ever looks back and thinks about that guy sometimes. Wonders what it's like to be married to that guy. He did become an evangelist. I wonder if she thinks what it would be like to be married to Billy Graham. You know, God does really care about you. And he can really guide you to the right person. Sometimes that person will not be the kind of person that you would think would be the kind of person that God would do what he does with. But I'll just show you how much God cares and how much he's concerned about that by telling you one story of a young man I know. He had dated this girl for about four years. And he really loved her. And he came to a point in his life where he said, I'm willing to give this girl up. If that's what you ask, I'm willing to say goodbye forever. Then he was tested on that. One day he had to come to a decision. Before his 21st birthday, he had to find out whether he was going to tell this girl whether he was going to marry her or whether he wasn't going to marry her. So he came to God and he said this, Oh God, I want you to tell me before my birthday, 12 o'clock midnight on my birthday, whether I'm supposed to marry this girl or not. Will you tell me that? And he says, he felt like God heaved a big sigh like this. Things I have to do for my kids. He's actually impressed with me. Fell asleep at 2 o'clock in the morning. Woken up at 6. And this was the covenant he said to God. He said, I want you to come and tell me. God didn't say anything. You need to, you know, you want to marry this girl. Just straight out like that. He said, I'll give God something totally impossible to do. Something that nobody would ever do. And he said, ha ha, you know. 6 o'clock in the morning, phone call. Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling. Guy runs up, phone call for you, long distance. Picks it up. Mother on the other end of the phone. His mother never calls him, especially 7,000 miles away. He listens to the phone. And his mother says, winky. First word. I want you to ask me to marry you. He knew my mother. She'd never say that. I'm standing looking at the phone. $30 worth of phone call goes past while I'm looking at the thing. I don't even know what she said to the rest of the thing. I said, yeah, right, you know. She was something totally different. She didn't even know what she said, either, actually. Just been playing, and that caught up. First word she said, and she went on. So I went in, and I was working the Detroit Teen Challenge, and Fay was working there at the time. She was on polishing desks. And my desk needed polishing. I was in charge of follow-up and other shit. So I waited. She came in and polished my desk. She did a good job of it. I must tell you. When she finished, I said, Fay, I've got an answer from the Lord, and it's in the form of a question. I said, and this is the hardest second lot of words I've ever said in my life. Other than Jesus, you can have everything I have. I said, will you marry me? She looked at me. She said, yes. So I went on. I sat down at lunchtime. They brought in a big birthday cake. Dad was singing happy birthday to me. I said, well, that is very cool, but it's not my birthday until August the 3rd. They said, today is August the 3rd. God answered before 12, midday, of my birthday. Now, I'll tell you this. You can trust God if you let God's time and God's money. President Graham, my father, I believe your heart is very close to arranging relationships between your children. I believe that you really care enough about us to give us the right people at the right time. If we only care enough about you to trust you. We can't trust the one who died first. We can't trust anybody. Lord Jesus, I pray you give kids the courage here to deal honestly with their date lives. They'll put their whole guidance in your hands. Stay away from sin. Father, in Jesus' name, I pray. Just as Abraham sent the seven down, so send down...