This sermon emphasizes the importance of traditional family values and the need for husbands and wives to communicate openly and make efforts to understand and support each other. It touches on the differences between men and women in roles and responsibilities within the family, highlighting the need for mutual respect and appreciation. The sermon encourages husbands and wives to seek constructive feedback from each other to improve their relationship and commitment to serving one another.

Let us open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 2 and I promise that I will not be long-winded at all. Who will give me 10 minutes of your time this afternoon? Let me see your hands please. All right, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. Okay, that's all I need. Thank you so much. Got plenty of time. Now, I'm so glad that you're here and we can talk about these things. You know, I'm going to have to just confess right at the outset that, you know, definitely a guy that has embraced traditional values, traditional family values, and we're living in a very sick culture. How many know that it's getting sicker all the time? I mean, it just, you know, Paul writes in Romans something that's actually hard to accept, but yet it is in the Scripture and so we might as well accept it, that one of the signs of people just being let go by God is when, you know, men start burning in desire for men and women start burning in their desire for women. That, you know, that is such a perversion of what is just, again, common knowledge. You know, it doesn't, you know, take a whole lot of thought and observation to realize that, you know, men were not meant to have physical relationships with men and so forth. The parts don't fit, you know, and so people are obviously just, you know, as the Scripture says, just turned over, you know, in their rebellion as almost as an example to us to see, look what happens when you reject God. Look how goofy your thinking can actually become when you turn your back on the truth. And so we are those who, I hope all of us, have opened our hearts to the truth and, of course, then God is enlightening us, showing us what remnants of darkness might still be hanging around so we can get out of it. A lot of Christians, however, and I'm just going to say this boldly but yet with compassion, they'll look at things like that example I've just given and say, good grief, what a goofy perversion that is. That's so far from the Word of God, yet unwittingly practicing maybe lesser perversions but still equal perversions that were never things that were intended by God for us to be involved in as husbands and wives and our families and so on and so forth. And so before we, again, point the finger at everybody else, we need to take a look at our own lives and see, am I lined up with the Word of God? Am I doing what God says? Otherwise, you know, we're going to be in the darkness. We sometimes, when we get a little bit of time off, we'll spend some time about an hour and a half from where we live in the southern part of the suburbs of Pittsburgh and travel a little bit east of Pittsburgh. My mom and dad, about 20 years ago, kind of semi-inherited some property and it's really an old farm and it's hard to explain. There's 14 acres and there's a barn but the barn is actually something you can live in, you know, so from the outside it looks like a big old barn but you see these windows and you walk inside and there's two like very rustic apartments, one on one side and the other side, and again, it's kind of like a hunting cabin or something like that, very rustic. But what's neat about it is that it's very rural and it's right in the heart of an Amish community and there's more Amish people, I think, there than there are what they, I think they call us the English. You know, I don't know, do you have any Amish people here in Louisiana? Not any population? No. Okay, well this is Pennsylvania so we've got lots and lots of Amish people and they're in Ohio to the west of us as well but this is kind of an unknown Amish community. There are tens of thousands of Amish people who live there and, you know, we interact with them on a limited basis and so forth but I don't know whether they really know Jesus or not. I've asked some questions of people who live in that area and they say, yeah, some of them really do know Jesus and they're practicing followers of Christ and they're living out their faith in those ways but he said many of them have just kind of inherited those traditions from their forefathers and they don't understand the real spiritual basis behind what they do but in fact they're reaping the benefit of the decisions and the wisdom of their forefathers and I have to confess, you know, I mean, I could very easily like just like step over the line myself, I think, and embrace their lifestyle. Some of the things that we've done that are similar to them, of course, if they believe in Christ, we believe in Christ, none of them have television sets and years ago we decided when we were just really just getting started, I guess, in our marriage, well, I know my son, as long as he's been alive, he's 21 and we kicked out our television before that point in time. We've lived without a television set now for two decades. Now, this is not to say that we don't ever see any TV. It is a little bit rare. My mom and dad live with us in a mother-in-law suite in our apartment. They have a TV and we watch the news often with them and fellowship and so forth but as far as regular programming, we've been out of that for so long and occasionally like during the news when we see a commercial for the programs that are going to be on that night, I mean, we are just shocked to our skins. I mean, just absolutely, can that actually be on TV? Can that be regular prime time programming? What people are watching is absolutely so perverted and if this represents our culture, man, we are going to hell in a handbasket. This is very, very, very sick and we've watched it over the years. It's a slow introduction of that slow slide that people just become callous to the perversion over the years and it happens so slowly that nobody's aware of it but I happen to, I'm certain that, you know, what the world would have totally rejected in shame and as being perverted back in the 1950s, nowadays professing Christians by the multitudes accept it as normal, you know, and watch it and just say, well, you know, that's how it is and that's the way it goes and that's our culture and so forth but if you just distance yourself from it for a time and step back and let that thing slide a little bit and go back and revisit it, you just can't believe how much has slid in just a couple of years, you know, but I admire that in the Amish people. I don't know when they decided not to do TVs. I think it was from the beginning and what I would look back at is the harmless stuff of initial television but maybe they had the foresight to see that, hey, this is only going to get worse. It's already slightly worldly. They're already promoting, you know, an agenda here and it's just gotten worse and worse and they've avoided that, you know, that none of them have the internet in their house. Now, I have the internet. I have to have the internet, I think, because of all the information I gather and mostly because of the correspondence I do but, you know, none of their kids are looking at pornography on the internet. Can I have a yay out there? You know, you know, it's not happening. The temptation is not there. That's based upon what Jesus said. If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it out. In other words, get rid of whatever it is that's causing you to stumble. Don't put the temptation before you. Our Bible says, make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts, you know, and yet parents, Christian parents, are so foolish that, you know, there's a TV set in their kid's room connected to the cable. Are you kidding me? Oh my goodness, you know, I just, you know, if anyone here is in that case, I urge you strongly to reconsider or to have the internet available in your teenage son's room and, you know, where you can't monitor what's going on there. You know, this is a huge, huge, huge danger and we're putting temptations right in front of our kids and so we've got to have more sense than what the world has. You know, we've got to obey the scripture and stay close to Jesus. The Amish women dress very modestly. They actually look like women. You can tell them apart, you know, from the men and, you know, they're just, they just radiate some degree of purity there in their dress, whereas many churches that I've visited, you know, you're up there preaching and you have to almost shield your eyes from what you're going to see in the congregation, in the church. You know, we're lifting our hands to worship God and you've got to close your eyes so you're not tempted to think the wrong thoughts. You know, this is the church. Something's wrong with this picture, you know, and so, you know, they decided to park at some point in time, you know, technologically and so forth, but they're holding to a certain traditional value and what we see when we examine them and observe them is really the way the majority of people in our nation lived a hundred or so years ago. You know, they're maybe odd for today, but they were the norm back then. They just stuck to some values. They don't have telephones in their homes. Now, of course, there's many different Amish sects. I never realized that until I started asking around, but you just think there's one. Oh, my goodness, they are divided, divided, divided, divided, but they don't have telephones because they realize that that's an intrusion on the family and they don't want relationships building outside the circle of the husband and wife and children that God has given them. And so, how many know that the telephone could be a real demon when it comes to drawing people away because it takes us out further from the central part of our family? Same thing with why they don't have cars. They don't want their kids to be driving away to Chicago getting jobs there. You know, we got a horse. We go as far as the horse will take us and it's going to bring us back to the same place because we have value for our families, okay? So, I'm just saying that, you know, in our watered-down version of the gospel that so many have embraced today, we just accept so many compromises and ultimately it makes us look no different than the world and we have the same exact fragmented families of the world. We have the same, actually a higher divorce rate in the so-called born-again Christian church than within the world itself. So, something is really, really, really, really wrong here, right? So, we're always looking at our lives and so forth and saying, now, Lord, are we slowly being pulled away, you know, into the culture or are we holding our ground and going against the flow? I don't know if you ever saw that little, that t-shirt. I haven't seen it in some years but it's a picture of a little Christian fish, you know, that little fish, you know, the Christian fish swimming against the tide of all those sharks and everything, you know, and that's exactly how it is in the Christian, you know, walk. We are going against the flow. People ought to be able to look at us and to say these people are indeed different. If we don't look any different and if we're trying to win them because, hey, I'm a Christian, I'm just about like you, you know, all you got to do is just come to my church and that's the sum total of what we're doing. Well, then that's nothing. That's nothing. The Amish, you guys have noticed this, never built a church building. They've been in homes. They move around. They're not wasting their money, you know, and the Amish people are not in their churches. The whole family is gathered together there. They don't have the youth minister come and take their teens out to where the strobe lights and, you know, incense and wild music and say, well, we got to reach them at their level and so, no, they're all together because the family is their central unit and the kids sit there right with them and so forth and they'll learn and grow whatever they're teaching in their Bible lessons and so forth and, you know, the Amish, for the most part, I mean, they're not in any way perfect but they're certainly not having the same rates of teenage rebellion as is experienced in our culture as a whole nor in the church as a whole, you know, and I'll talk about some of that a little later on, you know. So, what's the difference? Well, they've just held to certain principles and they're sticking with them and they're reaping the benefit of it. Again, you know, they might be going to hell in the end if they don't really have the substance of Christ but still, you know, I want something that works here and now and the future as well. Amen, and I believe that that's what, you know, New Testament Christianity is all about. Alright, so that being said, you know, please prepare yourself for, you know, considering traditional Christian family values. I'm going to ask you to turn to Genesis chapter 2. I want to go back to the very, very beginning in this session and just look at what I would call the no-brainers about God's intention, God's order for the family and, you know, let's look at it practically in light of how we're living our lives, how our relationships are with husbands and wives and with children and with the extended family and so forth. You know, most places around the world, I don't know if you know this at all, but really it's only in the wealthy nations that individual families live individually. Most parts of the world where I go, extended families all live under the same roof. And again, that can be very bad, very oppressive, and so forth without Christ but yet we think that's so strange. That's the norm around the world. People, in many ways, non-Christians, Hindus and Muslims and so forth are doing more to obey the commandment to honor your mother and father than many, probably most evangelical Christians because they're looking out for them. They honor the elderly. They care for them and so forth. They're not just dumping them off saying, you know, you're of no use to me any longer. All right, so Genesis chapter 2 and verse number 18. I, you know, mentioned, of course, this part of scripture earlier on. I want to read it now. Genesis 2 18. The Lord God said, it's not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the sky, to the, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, and this is still, I'm scratching my head, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So this was part of the process, looking for this suitable helper. So verse 21. The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept. Then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. And really, I understand the Hebrew doesn't say rib, but it just says part of his side. And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which had, he had taken from the man and brought her to the man. The man said, this is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Now here's Moses's divine commentary on that. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Just real quick, I want to mention, you know, everybody knows one of the major problems in marital relationship is in-laws, who are really like the outlaws. And if we follow the scripture a little bit more closely, we live in that problem. A man shall leave his father's mother. That doesn't mean necessarily physically leave. It doesn't mean emotionally leave. It's just saying this, that when you get married, that becomes your foremost relationship on this planet. And it's so important, it's so vital, it supersedes your previously most important relationship, which would be with your parents. And so when you're getting married, you know, that's why they have the father walk her down the aisle and they say, who's giving her away? However, you know, you're relinquishing something here. You're understanding there's a change going on, a major monumental change. And I want to tell you, if you ever walked your daughter down the aisle, I don't care how good that guy is, you know, there's something about it that is not easy to do. When I gave my older daughter, my oldest daughter away just this last June, I mean, I loved her fiance, I love her husband now, my son-in-law, but I'm telling you what, there is no man on this earth is good enough for my daughters. You know, I always used to joke and I'd say, you can marry anybody you want as long as he has all nine spiritual gifts in operation every single day, you know, and I made this big long list, this impossible list, you know, but I had to relinquish something. I said, now, you know, no longer, well, I'm still your daddy, you still love me and I still love you, and man, you know, we love each other very much, but now there's someone who's more important to you. I hate to even think of this, it's such a horrible thought, but there's someone who's more important than dad or mom. It is now your husband and we're doing this publicly so everybody knows. You out there still? Yeah. Okay, and so we're not meddling in their affairs. I'm so glad that my parents and Becky's parents didn't try to meddle in our affairs. They let us make mistakes unless we would ask them, you know, their advice, which we rarely did, stupidly as we were and so forth. Don't you just wish you could start over again with the wisdom you have at age 50 and start with at 20 with that? I mean, oh my goodness, it wouldn't be fair. Okay, well that's one way of making yourself feel better, but anyways, you know, listen, husbands, when you get married, let's take this one step farther. When you get married, guys, when you get married, your most important relationship is with that woman. It's not with the guys. It's not with the guys any longer. I'm saying, you say, I can't have any friends outside, you know. No, I didn't say that, but so many wives are complaining to me, you know, I'm second in my husband's life to his friends. You're making a huge mistake, buddy. If that's you, huge mistake. Your wife needs to know you are number one. There's no one whom I love more than you than Jesus. I love you more than my mom or my dad. I'm more committed to you than anybody else. You are number one as far as human relationships are concerned. Can I have an amen out there? And I guess some women are guilty of that as well sometimes, you know, but that's less common, you know, and so forth. You know, husbands, how would you feel if your wife walked in and just said, hey, I just want to let you know I'm going out tonight with the girls and we're going to go hunting and we won't be back for three days. Yeah, yeah, whatever, you know, we're going to go out garage saling for three days. I'll be back in three days, you know, you know, that, you know, that might be hard to, that might be hard to take. So we need to treat our wives like we would want them to treat us and love them as Christ loves the church. I need some more amens out there, please, today. I'm not getting enough amens. All right. Thank you, brother. Thank you. Okay, so now let's talk about the no-brainers. There was Adam, he just watched, he's just seen every animal apparently that God creates marched in front of him. Nothing seemed satisfactory. And would you agree with me, everybody, please, that there's no comparison between your wife and some animal? You know, I mean, that's like, you know, that's like the understatement of the century. I mean, it just seems so funny to me that God brought all these animals and they're actually seriously considering that one of these might be a suitable helper and then finally he brings Eve along there. You know, I just think, what are you trying to convey here? And I don't claim to understand that. All I can think of is, you know, wow, Adam, I'm glad you didn't settle for anything less. And I bet you were thanking God for a long time after that saying, oh, I'm so glad, you know, for what you did because she is a million times better than anything else you showed me before. This, Lord, was the best option. Thank you. Okay. And so what would be the first thing he noticed? I mean, what was just built into his experience? Well, first of all, he'd looked at her and, of course, he apparently knew that, you know, he'd had surgery, divine surgery, and she came right from him. And so, you know, boy, this is not just anybody. This woman is part of me. And God has so designed that relationship that we are one flesh. You know, not only she came from me, but we have a sexual relationship and we're one flesh. And so this is very unique. This is very intimate. There's nobody like this. And again, I don't want to, you know, boy, we've got children here, so I can't go, you know, deeply into these things. But, you know, nevertheless, he noticed that she was like him, but he also instantly noticed she's somewhat different. Okay. Enough said. You know, she is shaped a little different. A little different parts on there and so forth. And so, you know, yeah, the woo man part. Right. Okay. And, I mean, we did read it in our Bible. It's in your Bible, you know, that last verse there in chapter three. I mean, you know, she was not in her bridal gown when he brought her there. She was in all of her natural beauty. Can I have an amen? Okay. And so I don't know what his reaction was, but I can guess. I mean, this is the first time he ever saw what he just saw. And I, you know, most guys I talk to, we have the same thing in common. There's something built into us on this level. And, oh, my goodness. Woo, man. You know, this was a moment that, I mean, he, you know, he could not be distracted at that moment. Can I have an amen? No distractions. She has his full attention. And he doesn't have everything figured out. All he knows is that, man, she looks good. And I like looking at her, and I'm so glad God brought her to me, and God, you have made a masterpiece. Thank you so very much. Okay. Now, of course, time progresses. She gets pregnant. And now here's some just, you know, no-brainers that would have been obvious to him and anyone else who would have been observing. She gets pregnant, and she's bearing this child. And as her pregnancy, you know, progresses, thank you, she becomes, you know, especially in the last few months, it's not easy. Right? I mean, she can't just go out there and work in the fields eight hours a day. Now, I mean, she's got this big bulge here and so forth. And it's just hard to get up, hard to move around. I mean, you know, she's getting up at night and so forth. In other words, this thing that's growing, this, I assume he had figured out that there's a, you know, human being in there. I'm not sure how much revelation he had. Sooner or later, he knew there was a human being in there. But I mean, he knew this thing's growing. My wife is slowing down. She needs extra care, extra comfort. I got to have extra patience with her and so forth. And then he watches her go through childbirth. And again, God said in the curse, well, I'm going to increase her, you know, discomfort in labor. Well, as far as I understand, there already was a little bit of discomfort there. You know, so he watched his wife go through that and out comes this baby. Okay, well, it's a miniature person. This little human being, you can hold him, you know, in one hand and he doesn't talk. And he can't, you know, he's very stupid. And I'm just thinking, what would Adam, what would they have thought the first time they held a baby, the first baby ever born? You understand, Adam and Eve didn't have belly buttons. That's how you could tell they were Adam and Eve, no belly buttons. But this kid, he's the first baby born. He doesn't talk. He cries. He sleeps a lot. You know, you know, all the plumbing and so forth works without any, you know, control. And so she's holding this baby like this. This baby is crying. And then all of a sudden, instinctively, this baby reaches up to her breasts and starts nursing. Now, you know, well, you know, I'm sure they were in awe the whole time. What is God doing here, this miniature little person? And, oh, oh, so that's what those things are for, Eve is saying. And, you know, maybe she observed it in some other mammals and so forth. But, you know, this baby just instinctively, within moments of being born, is nursing from her breasts. And I'm sure they realized very quickly, this is a, get ready, full-time job. In fact, this is like double shift, triple shift. This kid has no schedule. This kid wakes up in the middle of the night. When we normally sleep, this kid is up. This kid cannot walk. This kid can't do anything on itself. This kid, when it poops, you've got to clean it up. When it pees, you've got to clean it up. You've got to feed this kid yourself. Why don't you start some solid food and so forth. I mean, the whole thing was a new experience, but certainly it consumed all of her time and more. I mean, their lives radically changed that moment. And so, and again, you know, bear with me, please. How can I say it? You know, well, I'll start with easier things. What if, let's just kind of go to the sublime, it's the ridiculous to the sublime here. What if Eve had said, you know, Adam, I've got an idea. I'm thinking maybe, you know, that just to make things easier here, we could get some coconuts and saw off the top and poke holes in the other side and get some rubber from the rubber tree and flatten it out into, you know, a piece so it's stretched, form that into kind of a nipple, nail that onto the bottom of that coconut, go milk a cow, pour some of that milk in there, but we need to sterilize it first, so we'll have to heat it up over there. So you get a fire going and get a pot over there, pour that cow's milk in there, and then we'll heat up that milk over there. And then that way, you know, not only will I have to do this, you'll have to do this too. And I can just keep on sleeping. Now, if they would have had, they didn't have that discussion, but I'm just trying to get you to think, I mean, that is not a discussion that could have ever occurred. It would never occur to them that there's something better than what God had instinctively designed and made happen, you know, physically in me and for this baby to be nursing. Obviously, God has designed for this baby to drink my milk from my breast. And this requires, you know, something I got to do this every couple of hours. And this baby is a full-time job. This baby's not sleeping, you know, I get a little time, but this is a full-time job, okay? And now, maybe the next thing they discovered is that babies kept coming. And so, man, I just got this one. This one just started, you know, walking a little bit, and all of a sudden, I'm feeling that same feeling in my stomach again, and it's growing again. And this time, they gotta figure it out. There's another one on the way. What are we doing? You know, what's happening here? Well, it must be another blessing. It's another miracle from God. How could we ever, you know, get upset about this? And again, the story could go on. I mean, she's designed, and it's going to keep happening unless they figure out some way to stop it from happening, is that there's just going to be babies, babies, babies, babies, babies. And her job is not getting easier. Her job is getting immensely complicated. In fact, she has to employ some of the older babies to take care of the younger babies. Are you with me? And so, I'm just talking about traditional values, traditional family settings. I mean, it was a no-brainer. They would have never, if Eve, let's say that they had some neighbors, and after that baby was born, Eve would have walked over neighbors and said, hey, we had this new little human being. I want to drop it off at your house every day. And would you take care of this baby for me, you know, every day? Because I want to go do something else every day. Well, then they said, are you out of your mind, lady? Well, it's your baby. You take care of your own baby. Your breasts are working. My breasts aren't working. It's your baby. You take care of that baby. You know, what are you thinking? What are you thinking? Oh, no, that's OK. We've got to figure it out. I've got these coconuts with these nipples and this cow over here, you know. You know, Neda looked at her and said, are you, you know, what planet are you from? This all sounds so funny, but this is what our culture is doing all the time. Like, it's natural, normal. OK, you know, I had this baby, and now I'll give it to somebody else, and I can go back to my work. And again, because of all these cultural forces that are telling women, well, unless you're out there earning lots of money, you know, you're just as capable as a man. Of course you're just as capable as a man. I mean, to run a multinational company, that's nothing compared to running a family with three kids who are still in diapers. Anybody can run a multinational corporation. Take one of those executives and put him in that home where that mother is there, you know, all the time with all those kids, you know. He would be in an insane asylum within just a week or something. That takes incredible gifting and talent, which God has given to a special category of people called mothers. Amen. I heard one guy say, I wrote this down because I can never memorize it, but he said, you know, he runs around a lot of academic circles, and he and his wife are always at these social functions and so forth, and you know, the standard question is, what do you do? What do you do? You know, and of course, your whole value as a person is judged by how you answer that question. What do you do? Well, you try to impress them with something, you know. And so he said, my wife, you know, just kind of got tired of the pitiful responses when she'd say that, you know, I'm a mother. I'm a stay-at-home mom, you know, because our culture so devalues that. And so she began saying to these academic people, when they'd say, what do you do? She'd say, and I'm going to quote it here verbatim, I'm socializing two homo sapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they might be instruments for transformation of the social order and the teleologically prescribed utopia inherit in the eschaton. Did you understand all that? I'm socializing two homo sapiens. She's got two little kids. She's training them up into the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In other words, I'm teaching them how to serve God in order they might be instruments for transformation of the social order. That is so they can bring the kingdom of God, a visible presence of God's kingdom to this earth for transformation of the social order into the teleologically prescribed, that is the prophetically predicted utopia. That is when the new heavens and new earth come inherent in the eschaton. That has something to do with eschatology. I'm not sure exactly how that fits in there, but that puts it in its perspective, doesn't it? So anyways, you know, I remember when we were married and so first married, you know, my wife got pregnant and we discussed some of these things before we got married, but after we got married, we discussed them in great detail. How are we going to raise our kids and so forth? And I'll just tell you the truth. And again, I'm glad I had this insight then and I might adjust it a little bit now because I probably was a little bit overboard. But I told Becky from the start, I said, honey, I just want you to get used to being at home because when we have kids, I want that to be your primary ministry and concern. And I want our kids to be raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord so they won't have your influence all the time. And already I realized that I'm already making compromises because of the culture. Now, what am I saying? I'm saying that even as a pastor, you see, back in the original days, the husband wasn't hopping in his car and driving downtown to be away for 10 hours and then show up again. And he wasn't taking business trips and so forth. He's working out in the field right out there. And as soon as a junior is able to walk, he's out there walking with dad. And so mom and dad are an influence all the time with their kids all the time. And dads train their sons, their skills, and moms train their daughters, their skills, and it's a family unit, you know? And so ideally, if I could do it all over again and raising my kids, I would like to be at home all the time and not be away and taking trips and so forth. Ideally, that's what I'd want. But anyways, we're making some bit of a compromise. And so I said, at least let's do this. You'll be there for our kids. I'll be there as much as I can for our kids. And so just get used to it. And she was in total agreement with that. And we made our kids a huge priority to pour ourselves into their lives so that they would be raised to serve the Lord. And now we've been at it for, you know, almost three decades. And our plan has worked. Okay. Now, I want to be very cautious in saying that again, as I said earlier on today, and I don't want to make anyone feel bad. I've made so many mistakes. You know, we have room to grow still, I'm sure. But I have learned a few secrets and I've made so many observations. I'll say this much too, with our children. Because I saw the biblical pattern that it was the parents' responsibility to raise the children and not any cultural institution. And let's just start on the easiest one. I realized early on, and even realized even more today, it is not the church's responsibility to make sure our kids turn out right. That's a total, that's a ludicrous idea, first of all, to think that by bringing your kids to a building for an hour or two, once or twice a week, that somehow that's going to influence them enough that they're going to want to serve Jesus Christ whom they love. They've got to be getting it, as an example, from their parents all the time at home. The Bible gives the parents the responsibility to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And I think the church as a whole is actually working against the plan of God, even by offering a lot of things that they offer for kids, because it sends a message to the parents, you don't have to do anything, just drop your kids off, leave the driving to us. And by offering those kinds of programs and so forth to people, again, people just think, well, yeah, you're the experts, you went to Bible school and so forth, you must know, and so I dropped my kids off. And statistics show, it's a horrendous, horrendous figure. I wish I could quote it because I heard it and I didn't write it down, but I'm going to give you a ballpark figure. Something like 85% of all children who grow up in evangelical homes, who are raised in church programs, upon leaving the nest, say goodbye to Christianity for good and never go back to the church. In other words, their experience of all those growing up years with the church usually was a negative experience that turns them off and inoculates them against the true gospel for the rest of their lives. Otherwise, we've got a program that's actually doing the exact opposite of what they say it's doing. Bring your kids to our church, we've got the most fun Sunday school program. And I played that game as a pastor, I confess it with shame today. But, you know, we've got this great children's program for your kids and it's just so amazing. When I was pastoring an institutional church, people would call up, they're looking for a church, and the first question they ask is, what do you have for my children? And they never ask, like, what do you believe about the Bible? What is your doctrine about Jesus Christ? What do you believe about salvation? The first question, and many times the only question is, what do you have for my kids? Oh, well, let me tell you, you know, what we've got for your kids, you know, well, we've got great Sunday school programs, well, we've got a full-time youth pastor, he'll focus on your kids, they have fun times, they have ski trips, they have outings, man, they do all kind of fun things together, and your kids, there's games, drawings, we pour a lot of effort in, we've got great Sunday school teachers over, and I try to sell them on this great program we have for their kids, and then would buy into it, you know, and it's just so amazing, if the kids on the way home from church say, we had fun, stupid mom and dad say, great, that's where we're going to keep going to church, because our kids like church, and they equate that with, oh, it's spiritual growth, because my kids like it, the last church, my kids said it was boring, and so this church, they like it, and so we're going to plant ourselves right here, and they'll go through all those programs, go through the senior high, go through the youth group program, and they go to college, and get drunk, and high, and pregnant, and say goodbye to Jesus, because they never had him in the first place, they just had a social network that had no spirituality whatsoever in it, and youth pastors, bless their hearts, they're under incredible pressure to produce results, every week they've got to bring in another report, how many were there, and so we've got churches now in Texas that every other month give away a pickup truck, and a lottery to their youth groups, as a way to get kids to come, can you imagine that, you know, the tactics that are resorted to, to try to get noses in the church, and say, this is success, is absolutely unbelievable, and so what I'm saying is, is that we saw, it's our responsibility to bring our kids up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, one of the components of that is we have to be there for them, and we made some very hard decisions that, you know, goodness, you know, from the natural standpoint, they looked like they were foolish decisions, one of the decisions we made, and I'm not preaching this as a doctrine that I think everybody should follow, because I want you to get the principle, I want to show you some things that we did to follow the principles, but there's other ways to follow the principles, we got rid of our television set, because we did not want our kids being influenced at all by television, because we saw how many families, you know, the television is a wonderful babysitter, I can go do what I want to do, because my kids can sit there glued to the tube, and even those kids shows the humanistic satanic agenda that is behind it, is incredible, and Christian parents don't even realize it, and you're letting that television set babysit your kids, so we got rid of our television set, and then I also noticed, as I would go to pastor's prayer meetings and so forth, that the number one request of pastors, now not like 90% of them, but the dominant prayer request of every pastor when I would go to pastor's prayer meeting was, they would request prayer for their wayward children, pastors, and you probably all heard the jokes, you know, you know, I mean, the preacher's kids, you know, they have reputations, so now, why is that? Well, I know why that is, at least in part, it's because when you're devoted to the ministry, and particularly in pastoring, and particularly the institutional pastoring, that can so easily be an excuse for you to neglect your family, because you're doing the work of the Lord, and children very, very, very, you know, instinctively pick up, there are things that are much more important than me to my dad, in fact, everybody in this church is more important to me than my dad, because if I ask him for something, he'll do it, but if someone from the church calls him, he'll immediately drop what he's doing with me to go help them, and so we're sending a message to our kids, and so I knew that could very easily happen to us, I knew that being a devoted pastor, and primarily a people pleaser, and so I certainly didn't want, you know, it's okay to neglect my kids, but I shouldn't, couldn't neglect any of my flock, and so forth, I knew that could happen so easily, and so we realized, and also because we observed, I'll add this, we observed through many years of pastoring, we observed what we considered wonderful, good people within our churches, parents who had their act together, at least to a certain degree, but good people, you know, for all intents and purposes, you know, I mean, they ought to have decent kids, we saw those kids rebel against those parents, and those parents and families go through literal hell with their kids, and yet the parents were, by all indications, lovers of Jesus, and they were not able to pass their spiritual heritage on to their kids, and so we, I question, you know, what's the, what's the reason for this, I mean, I don't want my kids to go the wrong way, I want to make sure that they turn out to be lovers of Jesus, and so forth, and I, and it came down to one thing that I'm still very persuaded is the one factor, that is, and it's not brain, it's not rocket science, it's not, it's not, it's not some complicated deep thing, it just comes down to this, your children are going to be influenced by those with whom they spend the most time, and, and, and we, and we send them off into an environment every day for six, or seven, or eight hours, where they're going to fall under an influence that is antagonistic towards our influence, and the opposite of our influence, and then bring them back at home in the evenings, and then we'll be so busy ourselves in our other responsibilities, and duties, and our busy lives that we'll hardly have any interaction with them, eventually it's going to be showing up that there'll be more influence by everyone else than by ourselves, and so teenage rebellion is really nothing more than children looking for a family, and finding love and acceptance within their peers, and their peers become their family more so than their actual family becomes their family, and so it's very simple, just keep your kids close by, make sure that they're spending a lot of time with you, and we decide actually to take the step of home schooling, which is a, you know, a very difficult step to make, because of the commitment level, and I'm not saying every parent should do that, or has to do that, but if your kids are going off to school every day, you know, and the public school, even private Christian school for that matter, they're getting a lot of influence that you're going to have to work really, really hard to counteract, you know, one of the criticisms that we got is, oh, your kids, you're protecting them so much from the real world, that they're not going to, when they step out in the real world, they'll be unprepared, and our response would always be, oh, no, no, our kids get plenty of exposure to the world every Sunday when they come to our church, and hang out with your kids. Now, we wouldn't say it like that, of course, but we'd say, oh, no, no, our kids, they're not so much in a bubble, you know, we didn't say they get it from your kids, because in Sunday school, and everything else, and running around the church here, they hear all the garbage that comes from your own kids, but that little bit of exposure was enough to prepare our kids for the real world, just coming to church, and hanging out with all the rest of the kids, you know, and somehow they've been able to make it in the real world, okay. So, and it was, man, it was a costly decision, I mean, to tell you, think about it, okay, you know, a lot of parents, when their kids are in school, then mom can go back to work, and so forth, so she can earn, they can earn more income, and, you know, you're also paying, I don't know how you pay taxes down here, but we pay our school taxes by our property tax, and so we have not benefited in the slightest from all those property taxes we paid for over 25 years now. We've educated everybody else's kids by paying for those public teacher salaries with our school, our property taxes, and our kids have not benefited in the least by that. Plus, not only we paid the salaries of all those teachers, but we had to buy our own school books, and again, take my wife out of the workforce, so that means, you know, less, less income for us, and it was a huge price to pay, but I'll tell you what happened. I got more enthusiastic about that idea than my wife did, when I first thought about it. At first, when I heard about homeschooling, I just, I thought, I said to Becky, I said, these people are nuts. They're probably storing up food in their basement for the tribulation, you know, because these are really weirdos, if they're doing this, you know, I mean, keeping their kids at home to school them, you know, that's, that's, that's weird, and then one day, we actually heard Dr. Thompson interviewing some people on the radio, who were the homeschooling gurus at the time, this is way back in the 80s, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, and he was talking to them as if it was a viable alternative, and I said, hey, well, we respect Dr. Thompson so much, let's buy their books and read about it, and we read about it, and it convinced me, and then I, I presented the idea to Becky, or we had already been talking about it, but she was hesitant, because she knew it was going to be a huge commitment, huge commitment for her, more so than for me, but the Lord gave her a dream, and she can tell you her dream sometime, but, you know, the, the essence of the dream was, she got to heaven, and our kids weren't there, and she was looking around for our kids in heaven, you know, and when she woke up from that dream, she felt like the Lord's saying, hey, I've got something for you to do, and it means you got to put your life, your own agenda, your own desire off to second, and you've got to pull yourself into those kids, and it's going to be hard, but in the ultimate end, it's going to, it's going to pay off, and I know if she hadn't made that commitment, our kids would have turned out entirely different, because I, I really, I was so devoted to pastoring, and the ministry, and so forth, that I regret to this day the amount of time that I spent with our kids. If I could go back and change it, I would give that a higher priority than I did, but I'm thankful that my wife, you know, made an extraordinary effort, you know, and passed off a lot of influence, godly influence to our kids, so praise the Lord for that. Okay, so I'm not, don't go out here saying, well, he's telling us if we're, if we don't homeschool, our kids are going to hell. No, I never, never, never said that. I've seen wonderful Christian families who are devoted to Christ, who sent their kids, and they, you know, they were strong Christians. They sent their kids into public school. When those kids came home, they'd say, what did they teach you today? They'd say, well, that's garbage. Now, when that, when they bring up evolution the next time, here's what you say, you know, and really send their kids like missionaries to those schools, you know, to counteract the evil influence, and, and, I mean, but, but, I mean, every night they're working with their kids and say, what did they give you today? I'm going to tell you if there's anything they told you that's not true, and always coaching their kids, very involved in the school district, very visible, you know, amongst the, you know, with the PTA, and I mean, just, I mean, super involved with their kids, so that, either way, it's a commitment, and it's a huge price, but it's worth it, and the principle is, you have got to spend time with your kids to rub off on them. Sort of, you say, well, I spend quality time. I believe any time with your kids, practically, is quality time. If they're watching you, if they're working with you, if they're playing with you, if they're just sitting with you, if they're, you know, you don't have to be praying with you, or, you know, preaching with you, I mean, just being with you, that rubs off on them. That rubs off on them, okay? So, so, I actually kind of got ahead of myself here, and I'm going to run out of time, which is okay. So, back to the original thought here, you know, as Adam and Eve were working out their experience in life, so, these things were so obvious to them. Something else, and I, I, I touched on this, and I'm going to, I'm going to touch on it, take it a little bit further, and then I'm going to back away from it, lest I get killed. So, I need some encouragement right now. Thank you. With fear and trembling, you know. No, I just, maybe I'll just skip that point, go on to the next point, because that would be so, so difficult. I know, but, but I am a chicken, so that's okay. Some, some things they know, I, I'll probably get, if I get the nerve, I'll come back to that, but they, they probably, you know, when, when she came, and he first saw this beautiful masterpiece that God had made to be his helper, and now he was complete, and now she could help him, and things would be so much better, you know, for him, and, and of course, also for her. They would have noticed that she's got a higher voice, and, and, and she can't, she's not as strong physically, and the Bible says this, you know, woman is the weaker vessel. Now, it doesn't mean weaker emotionally, spiritually, mentally, it means weaker physically. How many will accept that? For the most part, you know, you know, in most cultures, most cultures, by far and away, most cultures, men generally are taller than, the average man is taller than the average woman. Now, of course, there's many variations of all that, and so forth, but I'm saying the average culture, and men have deeper voices, isn't that true? You know, and so, when the man speaks, and, you know, says something authoritatively, he sounds more authoritative than his wife does. Are you with me? Okay, and, and, and so, so, that ties back into the husband, he's supposed to be the head, not of his, just his wife, and of that, but of his, of his family, he's the leader, and there, it's a good thing for children to, of course, to love their fathers, know their fathers love them, but it's also good for there to be that very healthy, I'm going to say, respect, and I'm going to go one step further, even a little bit of fear. Like when my dad, at certain times, looked at us, we called it, when dad puts on the owl's eye, and my dad, you know, without, we were in some public place, and he just looked at us, and with it, we call it the owl's eye, whatever we did, we stopped doing it, and we just froze, because we knew. Now, my wife, of course, is a great disciplinarian, and we practice spanking our kids, but our kids, a lot of times, were, would have to hold back their laughter when their mother would spank them, because it was so ineffective, and I would try to give Becky lessons, and I would say, honey, it's all in the wrist, you can't, like, you know, you can't do this, you got, you know, it's that last extra acceleration, you got to get that, that whip action, and if you're using your hand, or if you got a little spoon, a wooden spoon, you got, you got to, you know, it can't be a stick, you don't hold like a tennis racket, like this, no, it's in the wrist, wham, you know, and, and, and you have to, you have to make it hurt, so that they cry, you know, and our kids would even admit to us, sometimes, they would just put on tears, so that she, they would think, she would think that they were actually hurt, so that they wouldn't be turned over to me, but, but what I'm saying is, is that a lot of fathers have abdicated their parental responsibilities, being leader of the home, giving all the discipline over to their wives, that's a big mistake, God gave you that big booming voice, just, you know, put the fear of God in those little rascals, and again, I, again, you know, I've blown, I've jokingly tell people, you know, there were times when I would, you know, driving on the road, and my kids would be back there, carrying on fighting, or something, and I would just start swinging my hand, just trusting God, that true justice would meet it out, and I would sovereignly hit the right kid, you know, in order to get them to behave back there, you know, just in complete frustration, and so forth, trying to keep my kids under control, so, you know, we don't want to abuse what God's given us, that's not a good example of how to discipline your kids, but I've done it that way, and still, God is merciful, okay, now, again, back to the physical differences, he saw her, she's different, she's, she's smaller, for the most part, she's weaker, for the most part, she is dependent, she's the one that has the baby, she's the one that nurses the babies, and so, that just says, you know, automatically, well, she's, she, you know, obviously, most of her role is wrapped up, at least, as when he showed her small, in taking care of those kids, and so, that removes her of other responsibilities, and so, that, that, that gives him responsibility of, of being the breadwinner, being the one who provides, being the one who works hard to get out there, and put food on the table, that is a traditional role, but again, we've, we're losing sight of that, and I don't mean to offend anybody, or try to, you know, put a wrench in your plans, and so forth, but, but we just, you know, there's a difference between men and women, and it's not an inferiority, superiority thing, it's a difference of role within the family, I love it when my wife comes me with a pickle jar, and says, would you open this for me, honey, I love that, because she cannot open that pickle jar, that peanut butter jar, and I just smile, because I think, you still need me, you still need me, you know, and I so easily open that, and hand it back to her, and she'll say something, she'll say something, complimenting, well, I'm glad I have you, you know, strong man around the house, I'm about the old-fashioned Timmy and Lassie type stuff, but I love that stuff, amen, I'm the husband, I'm the man, I'm the leader of my household, and, and, you know, my wife respects me, and I love her dearly, and, and, you know, we're not competing to see who can make the most money, and, and, you know, something else along these same lines, and some of us, we have to get our minds completely renewed in the whole area of what it is we actually need materially in our lives, you know, because what's driving so many of us out, you know, to work double jobs, or working many wives to have to go out and work, is because we have to have what the Joneses have, and we're trying to keep up with them, and if we just adjust our thinking in line with the Bible, and realize that we're already so wealthy just to live in this country, and praise God, I've got a little house, and I've got a car, and man, what else could anybody want, I've got my little place here, and you know, I don't need to show all the fancy stuff, and so forth, and we can value what God values, and focus on our kids, and so forth, you know, again, it's a whole, it's a whole adjustment of your thinking. One last thing, you know, again, I don't understand women, I don't understand them, so I'm not, you know, well, you have to have a, have to have a woman get up here, and give a seminar, what's that, well, no, I'm just saying, you be responsible to get some woman up here to, to explain them to us, men. No, no, I wasn't saying that, no, I don't think, you know, men have a hard time understanding women, but they definitely think differently, they're different in so many ways, and our, our marriages are a lifetime of discovering the differences. It just amazes me, you've been married for 20 years, and all of a sudden, you learn something about your spouse that you didn't know, and it's, you know, you've been missing it for all these years, just like, you know, an unfolding package, and so forth, but, you know, I'll tell you what, men love to be, husbands love to be proud of their wives, and, you know, show them off, and so forth, and say, look, look at this woman, you know, she loves me, and they love to do that, and so forth, they, you know, I guess what I'm trying to say is that, you know, first of all, husbands have a responsibility to make, make sure that your wife, you know, knows that she's loved, and if you're, if you're, how can I say this without offending people, it's so hard not to offend people when you say stuff like this, but, but if you're, if your wife isn't taking care of herself, then that could be a reflection on how she feels treated, you know, and oftentimes, the husbands are complaining about, well, why my wife take care, better care of herself, why doesn't she lose some weight, and so forth, like that, but you're not giving her the incentive, you know, because you're putting her down, and making her feel worse about herself, and she just says, well, what the heck, I can't please them anyways, and no matter what, so, you know, pass me another brownie, and, you know, at least I'll be happy for a minute here, you know, and, and, and it's a, it just grinds away, and works against them, you know, whereas, you know, husbands, if you would compliment your wife, and tell her how beautiful she is, and so forth, just like I talked about earlier today, you know, people will rise to meet your expectations, you know, and so, if we, if we believe in them, they'll rise to your expectations, you tell your wife how beautiful she is, and how attractive she is, or she's liable to work harder to, to be that attractive woman that, you know, maybe you really want her to be, but if she's not caring about herself, it could be, again, a reflection of how you're treating her, I'm not saying that that's always the rule, I'm just trying to very gently say that instead of pointing our finger at our spouse, we need to say, now, what am I doing that is contributing to what I don't like, and may I encourage you, because I want to get into other things here tomorrow, but may I encourage you now, as husbands and wives, just because we've had kind of devoted this weekend to the family, and first we're starting off by talking about marital relationships, you know, can I ask everybody just to do something, and I, I'll do it, I'll do it, my wife will do it, we'll both do it, and so we're asking you to do it too, sometime, maybe not this weekend, but sometime coming this week, I'm going to ask my wife, honey, if there's something you would, could change about me, what would you change, I'm going to open the door wide open, yeah, one thing I said, only one thing, what's the one thing that you would change about me, so open the, wide open the door for constructive criticism, and committing that I'm going to work on that, whatever it is that you say, and then of course vice versa, I get my chance too, you know, on this, and so forth, so we're both making ourselves vulnerable, both taking the same willingness to take the steps that we, you know, can take to please each other, to be more Christ like, to serve each other more, so what would you change about me, to make me into a better husband, and, and, and then wives, say that to your husband, what's the one thing of all the things, and there could be many things, but what's the one thing, all right, that's my challenge, how many of you will do that, husbands and wives, hold up your hand, commit to it, husbands and wives, look around to see there, you see the guy, you see the gal, okay, so now you're, you're committed to it, all right, okay, is that it for us there, okay, that's it, all right, let's, let's pray, let's pray, and get out of here quick.