The sermon transcript discusses the importance of showing proper honor to parents. It is divided into four sections: the security that God provided to the people after the worldwide flood, the situation they were in, the sins they committed, and the significance and result of those sins. The sermon emphasizes the need for security and the potential challenges that can arise even when things seem to be going well. It also highlights the story of Noah and his sons, specifically focusing on the sin committed by Ham and the honorable actions of Shem and Japheth. The sermon encourages accountability and the understanding that God knows and holds us responsible for our actions.

A while back in the Reader's Digest, there was an article entitled, Parent Abuse. We hear much today about child abuse, but parent abuse is a problem too. Many parents cannot express the frustration that they feel at the rebellion and abuse that they receive, especially from their teenagers. And even in our society today, as people are grown often, their young people abuse them in neglect, in disrespect, and many other areas of our society. However, the Bible makes it very clear that children are to honor their mother and their father, to honor their parents. Now certainly when we move from being under their authority directly in the home, to adulthood in marriage where we form our own family unit, or we are released by them as individuals to go on with our lives, not under their direct authority anymore, that relationship does change, it modifies as we move through. But while I believe that that submission area is progressively modified as we move through into adult years, I believe that the matter of honoring our parents is never changed. And yet we see so much disrespect to older people and to parents today. In fact, I believe if we fail to honor our parents all through our lives and their lives, that we will incur very serious consequences, that God's wrath and God's correction and God's chastisement is even upon believers who neglect or abuse their parents, or grandparents, or older people. Have you ever told your children the story of the two bears? No, not the story of the three bears, you probably told them that one. In 2 Kings chapter 2 and verses 23 and 24, there's a story of two bears. We won't take the time to look at it now, but you can look it up later. And it's a story that every young person should hear. The prophet Elisha, an older man who happened to be bald, as men are apt to be, was walking along one day and a bunch of children saw him. And they started mocking him, and they said, Go up, thou bald head! Go up, thou bald head! And they were mocking him for his bald head, the prophet of God. The Bible tells us that two bears came out of the woods and tore 42 of those children. You say, well, that sounds like a horrible thing for God to do. I believe there are very serious consequences, and I think that's why God put that in the Bible. Do you know in the Old Testament that when young people were rebellious and incorrigible and could not be straightened out by their parents, even though they had disciplined them, were so rebellious that they could not be straightened out at the home level? They weren't allowed to just go out into society as they do in Sweden today and give them welfare and let them live on their own because they've divorced their parents. Or in our society, let young people just go out and live on welfare or those kind of programs. They were stoned to death. You say, what a horrible thing that God would ever call for that. Yet I think the severity of the punishments, the severity of God's dealing with those issues shows the severity of the crimes themselves and the abominable destruction that happens to a society when they allow disrespect for authority to permeate the community life. Today in our society, the people that are most prone to crime, to drug abuse, these kind of things are not the hardened criminal. We used to think of the thug, you know, the 30 or 40-year-old hardened criminal. Those aren't generally the people that are committing the crimes. It's teenagers. Uncontrolled in their own families, now uncontrolled in society. I believe in this passage today, we're going to learn the seriousness of showing proper honor to our parents. We're going to look at four sections in these verses. First of all, the security that they had. Secondly, the situation they were in. Thirdly, the sins that they committed. And then the significance and the result of those sins. First of all, in verses 8 through 17, we see a tremendous security that God brought to these people following the great cataclysm, the worldwide flood that they had experienced. And I believe they needed some security. They were probably wondering whether it was going to happen again. I mean, they knew they were still sinners. They knew that they still sinned. They knew they still had evil hearts. And I think they were just waiting if they just did one thing wrong, or if they just went a little bit too far, all of a sudden it was going to start raining again. And maybe they wouldn't have an heart this time. And they'd been traumatized by this experience. And you know, if you've been through a traumatic experience of the loss of a loved one, or some crime that is committed upon you, or some horrible catastrophe that has happened in your family, you know that you have this feeling of possible dread and gloom that this could happen again. I think they felt like that, and so God in His grace gave them His covenant. We see this here in verses 8 through 17. And God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, I, and I behold I, establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you. And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, of every beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth, and I will establish my covenant with you. Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there be any more be a flood to destroy the earth. He made a covenant with them, a bereath in Hebrew. A covenant is not a contract. Here a covenant made by God was unilateral. It was made on behalf of Himself. You notice as He enforces that, when He makes the covenant, He says, and I, even I, will establish my covenant with you. The emphasis was on Him, not on the people. Praise God that our security and our salvation is not based in us. If it were, it would be hopeless. We wouldn't be able to even get it, let alone hold on to it. But our salvation is based in God and what He has done for us in the new covenant that we have in Christ, that we remind ourselves of in obedience to Him every time we come to the Lord's table. We're reminded of the covenant. He said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. And so we have a covenant. God is the maker of the covenant. The objects of the covenant are all flesh, including us as the descendants coming down from Noah. And even the animals are included within the covenant here, even as the animals were preserved on the ark. All flesh are the subjects of this covenant. And the covenant is concerning this, that there will never be another universal flood. Now, by the way, if the flood, as some people say, was only a local flood, then God broke His covenant because there's been local floods, big ones around the earth since then. The covenant was that there would never be a universal flood that would destroy all flesh, as had already happened during that time. And so we see God making a covenant. Turn with me to Hebrews 8, verse 10, to see the covenant that is made with believers, with all who are in Christ, there is a covenant also. Now, this covenant was made with saved, unsaved everybody, the covenant, the Noahic covenant. And everybody enjoys that protection. Every person on this earth enjoys the protection and will know that there will never be a worldwide flood. No matter if the polar ice caps melt or whatever else happens, there will never be a worldwide flood. God is withholding the waters that that will not happen again. But look at Hebrews 10, or rather 8 and verse 10. Hebrews 8, 10. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people. He talks about the new covenant, as spoken of by Christ in the book of Matthew, that has now been made with us as believers. We have entered into the new covenant that results in a new heart. Not just an outward preservation from the flood, but from inward preservation, from spiritual death in hell forever. That is the new covenant, made and sealed with the blood of Christ. Now, it's interesting that marriage is spoken of as a covenant. We speak of the covenant of marriage. And the word covenant is the right word to use for marriage, rather than the word contract. Because a contract is based on mistrust between parties. Isn't that why you have contracts in business? You don't trust the guy, so you want to see it in writing. You want to have a legal document. You check with your lawyer and you make sure, because you don't trust him. Maybe he won't fulfill his part of the bargain. And so you have a contract. A contract is made between two parties on somewhat of an equal basis. That if one breaks his side of the contract, well, then the other one has the right usually to break his side of the contract. But marriage is not a contract, just made between two people. Most people in our society think so. Marriage is a covenant, made in the eyes of God and held to by Him. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. That's why marriage should not be broken, even if it's miserable, even if it's rotten, even if it's a big problem. God says that marriage is a covenant made before God and it should never be broken and it cannot be broken without sin. And so we see the covenant that God made with us. And you know what? When we have a marriage, what do we do as part of the marriage ceremony? We give a token of the covenant. And the preacher says, what tokens do you give that you will fulfill your vows? And then they usually hand the ring to the preacher and the preacher gives it to her and then she puts the ring in his finger and he puts the ring in her finger. And that's the token of the covenant. And for the rest of their lives, they can look at their hand anytime and say, oh yeah, I'm married. There it is. That's the token. They might not feel married. They might not want to be married. But they're married. There's the token. The token of the covenant. Some people have said that it was a ring because of the eternity of our love. But I hate to tell you this, but marriage is not eternal. Some of you would be glad to hear that, but it is not eternal. Marriage is till death we part. It's not eternal. No matter what the Mormons say, there's no eternal marriage. Marriage is till death of one of the parties. So there's a token given and God in having this covenant here with mankind, he gives a token. And what does he give? He gives a ring. A ring. We notice what the ring is in verse 12 through 17. God said, this is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I do set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a token of a covenant between me and the earth. I understand rainbows are really round, but you can't see the whole thing from here. But he gave them his ring, this circle, this rainbow as the token of the covenant. Now, some people, scientists that understand these things better than I do say, well, there probably wasn't a rainbow due to the atmospheric conditions before the flood. They probably couldn't have rainbows and things were operating on a different scientific basis. We don't know. It looks like here, God gave the rainbow here. And he gave it as a token. So that when people looked up in the sky and the clouds were gathering and everything, again, they think, they probably, every time the clouds gathered here, they would think, hey, maybe there's going to be another flood. Maybe it's not going to stop raining this time. But when they saw the rainbow, they say, oh yes, we have a covenant. God has promised us that the earth will never be flooded again, completely. And when they saw the ring, they were reminded of their relationship with God. And so it was evidence. The word token means evidence, that which makes manifest a visible pledge. This word token is used in several ways in the Bible. In the Old Testament, it's used of circumcision as a token of Israel's covenant with God. Genesis 1.14 says that the sun and moon are tokens or signs, as it's translated there, of God's love and care. Every time you look up and see the sun and the moon, you know that God is there. And he's promised the sun and moon would shine as long as the earth stands. And then we see the signs in Egypt, the tokens that God gave of his power to the Egyptians. He says, I'm powerful now. Here's my way of proving it. And the frogs and the bugs and the water turning to blood. And then eventually the sign of the death of the firstborn in every home. He says, I'm powerful. And here's the proof of it, the token of it. In Ezekiel 20, we're told that the Sabbath was a sign or a token between God and Israel of their special relationship. In Isaiah 7, 14, the Lord said to the king, he says, I'll give you a sign. Ask a sign in the heaven above or the earth beneath. And he said, no, I'm not going to ask for a sign. Well, God says, well, I'm going to give you a sign. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, shall call his name Emmanuel. That's a sign. The virgin birth of Christ is a sign that this child is the son of God. That was the sign. It is an outward manifestation of some inward reality. You look at somebody's finger and say, oh, she's married. He's married. How can you tell? Well, there's a ring on that finger. It's interesting that in the New Testament, we see that the Holy Spirit is given to us as the earnest of the Spirit, the earnest of the Spirit, of our relationship with God as believers. You know what the word earnest means? In the Greek, it's arabon, which even in modern Greek means an engagement ring, which spoke of a binding covenant made before God between a man and a woman that He would marry her, a promise confirmed by a token. The Holy Spirit is our token of that covenant today. He dwells within every believer. He convicts us of sin. He guides us. He prompts us. He opens the Word of God to us. He enables us to pray. And if you're a believer, you know you're a believer, and one of the reasons you know it is because the Holy Spirit indwells you and chastens you and teaches you and guides you. That's your arabon. That's your token. That's your sign of your covenant relationship with God. And you can base the security of your salvation upon the fact that the Holy Spirit genuinely indwells you. Because if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. You can have the outward appearance of Christianity. You can go to church. You can dress right and act right and be moral and everything else. But if the Holy Spirit does not dwell in you, you are none of His. If the Holy Spirit dwells in you, you may have your failures. You may have your frustrations. You may fall into sin from time to time. You may have difficulty going forward in your Christian life. But if the Holy Spirit indwells you and you sense His presence and power and work in your life, then you know that you are His. And you have the security that you will never perish. You will never go to hell because the Holy Spirit indwells you as the arabon, the token, the sign of the covenant that has been made and sealed in the blood of Christ. I was reading where, in the old days, pastors in England used to teach their people that every time they saw a rainbow, they should pray. Every time they saw a rainbow, they should pray and thank God for His covenant with them that He would never destroy the earth with another flood again. And so Noah and his sons enjoyed now unprecedented security. They knew what would not happen to them. We too in Christ know what will not happen to us. We know that we will never perish because no one can pluck us out of the hand of Jesus Christ in Him. And so secondly, we see not only their security, but we see the particular situation they were in, in verses 18 through 20. We have a little history now of what happened. And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark, there were three, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham is the father of Canaan. You say, well, so what? Well, you'll find out so what in just a little while, but he's introducing a character here. He mentions three sons and one grandson. There were a lot more grandsons, granddaughters. But he mentions three sons, the three sons, the only three sons of Noah, and mentions one of the grandsons. And we'll see a little bit more about him later. Remember Canaan and think about him. We'll come to him later. Three sons. Verse 19, these are the three sons of Noah and of them was the whole earth overspread. Now that teaches just as plain as can be that everybody on the earth is a descendant of Noah and his three sons and their wives were descendants and that we are descendants of those. The major races of the world as we understand them would basically spring out of these three individuals. Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now in our day there's multiplied even more as 150 nations over 3,000 language groups and so many more ethnic groups and all of that. And we don't know exactly how that all fits into this, but we know that everybody goes back to Noah and to his three sons. Now the situation was that Noah was a farmer. Verse 20, began to be a husbandman. So far so good. He's a farmer. And he planted a vineyard. Nothing wrong with that. So he's got a vineyard. He's got a nice family life. Got a nice little farm. Got the security of God's covenant and his promise. He's got the rainbow in the sky. No more flood. After all those years of building the ark, riding out the storms, keeping track of the animals, keeping track of the kids and the grandkids and getting it all off the ark and getting settled. I mean, that's a lot to go through for a man. Now he's had several hundred years to do it, but I think he was coming to a time when he thought maybe he could settle down a little bit. Things were really starting to click. He worked his way through some tremendous cataclysmic changes in his life and now things really seem to be going well. But as one person said, when everything seemed to all be going well, watch out because you're going to have a challenge. And he did. Because that secure, happy picture was soon shattered by what happened next. The sins. Verses 21 to 24. And he drank of the wine and was drunken. And he was uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, remember him, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders, went backward, covered the nakedness of their father and their faces were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness. Noah woke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him. Now I believe there's a certain veiling for decency that went on here. But I believe there was something very, very immoral that took place here. I don't know all the details. I don't care to know and I'm glad God shielded them from our eyes. But something very perverted happened here. First of all, it started by him drinking. He let down the guard after a great victory. You know, that often happens. We see men in the Bible. Today we call it a midlife crisis. In those days they just called it sin. Elijah has had the great victory on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal. He's won the victory of the two altars and the fire has come down from heaven and consumed the altar and everybody says we're going to follow the Lord and what a great victory. Just a few days later we see him by the brook. He says, Lord, take my life. Jezebel's going to kill me. I don't want him to do it. He's afraid of a woman. He's taken out hundreds of prophets in the whole nation. He's afraid of one woman. Maybe rightfully so. I don't know. Some women, you know, can be a real threat. But, here he was after the great victory, depressed, suicidal, even. Do you know when most pastors leave a church after they've just completed a big building project? I don't know if they're exhausted or they get proud or what happens. I don't know. But it's so often in people's lives the greatest time of vulnerability to sin is after they've had a big victory in their lives because Satan goes about as a roaring lion seeking who he may devour and he hits us at our most vulnerable time. When you've had a big victory, you feel like, hey, I'm as spiritual as I've ever been. Ever feel like that? Maybe you had some big sin in your life. You came to Christ and you had some big problem and you just knew, boy, if you could get that thing licked, you knew that the rest of your Christian life would just be smooth sailing if you could get that one big habit problem licked. And maybe you eventually got that licked and you got it settled and you all got it straightened out. And you think, hey, the rest of the things in Christian life are going to be easy. And all of a sudden you get bogged down and you find that there are even harder things to deal with, inward things of the heart. And I think this was a situation with Noah who relaxed his guard. You remember David? Oh, he'd conquered all the kings around about him. He was at the height of his grandeur. He didn't have to go out to battle anymore. He had his army disorganized. They could win all the victories without him. And so he stayed home. What did he end up with? Bathsheba and murder and adultery. All that frustration and sin. Solomon, the greatest extent the nation of Israel ever had, and peace and glory and riches flowing into his kingdom from all over the known world. He starts marrying heathen wives and ends up bowing down before idols. Be careful. There's a real danger, especially when men have achieved a certain level in their lives where they've strived to achieve in their job, especially. And they've gotten to that position where they've sort of peaked out as far as their careers go or so they think. And that time is very dangerous because they're often open to many, many temptations. Women, especially, are open to this kind of temptation when they have raised their children or so they think. When the children are left home, the empty nest, often a time of tremendous vulnerability in our lives. Times of greatest achievement can be a time of greatest temptation. Vacation time, a time of great vulnerability to Satan. Sometimes people take a vacation from the Lord, you know. Take a vacation from church. Don't have to go to church. Take a vacation from their daily devotions. They don't need it. And they find themselves falling into sin on their vacation and they come back frustrated and slip back in their Christian life rather than moving forward. And so, he started drinking. Then he got drunk. Noah had conquered the flood. He'd conquered all kinds of tremendous obstacles, but the bottle got to him. How many men who have conquered great things and have done great things in their lives have been done in by a little bottle? Walter Crume, the director of the Aberdeen Serviceman's Christian Center, was sharing his devotions with the board meeting last week. He said, you know, he says, my dad was quite a well-to-do farmer. Had several children down south and had a very prosperous farm. Made lots of money. Did very well. But then he got into the moonshine business. Started making moonshine and selling it and began drinking. And it ended up that he lost everything. Left his family. I don't think Walt ever saw his father after he was nine years old. His father left. Never came back. He just heard recently that his father had died on the street in Washington, D.C. in 1972 as a bum on the street. All because of that bottle that he meant. How many people have been destroyed by alcohol? And yet many people say, well, the Bible doesn't say anything wrong with alcohol. Bible doesn't say anything bad about drinking. No problem. If you think so, copy down some references and look them up. I won't take time now, but look at Proverbs 21. Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. That doesn't sound like a commercial for alcohol, does it? Proverbs 23, 29 to 35 is a whole section that says, who hath woe, who hath contention, who hath redness of the eye. And it goes on and it says those who tarry long at the wine, those who seek after mixed wine, and how they have family problems and personal problems and health problems and money problems as a result of the dominance of alcohol in their lives. Several other passages, Isaiah 5, 11 and 22, Isaiah 28, 7. In the New Testament, Ephesians 5, 18, be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be drunk with wine, drunk with wine, and be drunk with wine, and be drunk with wine, and be drunk with wine, and be drunk with and be and be drunk with wine, and be drunk with wine, and be drunk with wine, and be drunk with wine. The Bible says in first Corinthians 5, 11 that we should not associate with a man who calls himself a brother but is a drunkard. In first Corinthians 6, 10 it says that drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God, those who at all are affected by alcohol and will allow alcohol to affect their lives. Now, that's what the Bible says. And Noah didn't know that Noah didn't have Ephesians 518. But I think he should have known better, and he sinned and he had the results of his sin. He drank, he became drunken and he became uncovered in his tent. I don't know who uncovered him. I don't know the whole situation. But something very perverted happened there. You know, alcohol is a product of decay. You don't have alcohol without decay. It's a rotting process. It's a decay process. And just as alcohol is produced by physical decay of the fruit of the vine or whatever else is used. So it brings moral decay into the life of everyone who spends their time with it. There are three steps to ruin here. First of all, the drinking. Secondly, the drunkenness. And then thirdly, the immorality and perversion. And these three steps are involved. Wherever you find alcoholism, you will find immorality as well. Well, you say, well, how do you prevent that? How can you prevent going down that road? Well, some people would say the way to prevent it is to not ever get to number two, the drunkenness to get a drink, just don't get drunk. I personally believe that it's much clearer in the scriptures that we ought to start with number one. If we don't drink, we'll never become drunken. If we're never drunk and we won't become in that kind of perversion. And so we see drink drunk, uncovered three steps of sin on Noah's part, one of the greatest men I've ever lived. I think one of the greatest proofs of the inspiration of this book is that it tells us not only the good things about these men, tells us bad things, too. Now, if if we thought that you were some great person and we wanted to elevate you and get everybody to think you're a great person and we wrote a biography of your life, you think we would tell details like that? No, we'd say, well, they don't really need to know that. It was later in his life. He'd already achieved everything. And we wouldn't want to cast any kind of, you know, bad light on this great individual. God tells us the whole story. What about the other people in their sins? Well, we see him and his response to the sin and foolishness and immorality of his father. What does he do? Him, the father, can he drops in to see dad? He goes in there and there he is. And he sees the naked, the word see there is interesting, it means gazed upon where you are, it's not the normal word for looking at. In Hebrew, he gazed upon the nakedness of his father. It's the first pornography in the Bible. He gazed upon the nakedness of his father. And what did he do? Did he cover him up? Did he help him out? No. He goes out and he tells his brothers, hey, come here, I want you to see some. The Bible says that he went joyfully, told his brothers joyfully, told them with joy. Is this who you're announcing some good news? You know, the Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins. The Bible says that love does not rejoice in iniquity. You know, if we removed everything from television that involved rejoicing in iniquity and laughing at drunkenness and laughing at sin, we wouldn't have very much left, would we? Most comedy and humor is based on making fun of people. Making fun of people often are in serious problems. We were riding down the road, boys and I riding down Montgomery Road the other day, saw a police car, saw a truck stop there. And we saw a man trying to walk a line. You ever see a drunk try to walk the line? Well, he was apologizing. He just he just couldn't walk that line. He looked like he was walking a tightrope, but he couldn't. He couldn't walk the line right on the pavement. I guess my first reaction in the flesh was sort of laughing. It was a little funny. You know, he's trying to walk the line. He couldn't do it. Then I was gripped by a real a real sadness for him. Here was a man being dominated by alcohol who couldn't even walk a straight line, let alone drive a vehicle properly. But here when Ham saw his father this way, first of all, he stares at it. Second, he brings other people in to see it. You say, oh, what's so weird? What's so special about that? I won't take the time, but if you want to study this, look at Leviticus 18, six to nine, where it goes down. The whole chapter spends time on saying, don't look on the nakedness of this person. Don't look at the nakedness of this person. It goes all down a whole list of people. And it equates this with sexual activity. Leviticus 20 also, verses 11 to 21. Same way. Won't take time to look at it. I'm embarrassed to look at it, but you might want to check it out if you have some questions about Ezekiel 22, verse 10 speaks of discovering a father's nakedness and how sinful that is. One interesting verse is Revelation 3, 18. It says that we were not right with God, who do not know him, may think that we are clothed, but actually we are naked. We are like the king and his clothes, who supposedly was wearing clothes that only wise men could see. But actually, a little boy said he's naked. And that's the situation most people today. They're like Adam and Eve, they are stitching clothes of their own, making to cover their sinfulness and their nakedness before God. And God says, I've got to provide a covering for you. And that's what God did here for Noah, for his sin. God allowed his other two sons to have the sense and the respect for their father to go in and take care of him. That's what they did. They didn't go in and mock him. They didn't even get involved in that pornographic kind of looking at their father in that situation. What they did was they walked backwards. Can you see this kind of thing? They're walking backwards and their eyes closed. They went backward and they didn't look and they covered their father up and they showed respect for him, even though he was wrong. You know, I believe that young people ought to have respect for their parents, even when their parents are wrong. Even if you disagree with your parents, you respect them. Young people, if your parents do something you think is unfair, unjust, not right, you still are obligated by God to honor them. That means you speak to them in an honorable way. You speak to them in a respectful way. You don't sass them. You don't argue with them. You don't argue back. You respond to them in a right kind of a way and you submit to their authority unless they're telling you, of course, to do some direct sin. And so we see here Shem and Japheth, so many parallels to the fall. It's like we're starting all over again. God had to start the world over again. I heard President Reagan talking about we're going to start the world over again in some speech. You guys said I hope it would happen last time they started over again. Here went the whole thing again. You know, we see so many similarities. We see nakedness. We see a covering provided by someone else. We see eating a fruit, getting them into trouble. We see a prophecy and we see a curse and a blessing. This is like starting all over again and all the same problems all over again. You know, we could start all over again with you. You say, well, Adam and Eve, they messed it up. Noah, he messed it up. Why don't we give the world another chance? We'll start with me. I'll tell you what, it'd be worse. I think any of us would probably do worse than Adam and Eve ever did or Noah ever did. If we were given the chance to start the world over again, because we're the same kind of people, we have sinfulness in us as well. I think that when Noah woke up and he realized what had happened to him and he had this awful, awful feeling of what had happened, the shattering of the peaceful, secure situation he had, he'd know now that sin was out in the open. He was destroyed by it in so many ways. But he realized that he had done wrong. He realized his one son had done wrong. And he also realized the respect that his other two sons had showed for him. And then we see the significance of it in verses twenty five down through twenty nine. And as a result of that situation, he says this and he said, cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants, shall he be unto his brethren? And he said, blessed be the Lord God of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant. This was the Noahic curse that was put upon Canaan. Now, for many years, this was the proof text for racial discrimination in this country and especially in the south of our country, fundamental Bible, believing gospel preaching, born again, pastors and evangelists preached that the black people were cursed because of this passage and therefore they deserve to be servants and slaves and that this was God's will and that we had to keep them down because this was just helping God fulfill his word with a curse on the black race. But that isn't what it means. I mean, it's just, you know, it's as simple as that. That isn't what it means. And you notice that Ham, who is probably the ancestor of the African people in a black race, among many other races, many other people groups, was not the one that was cursed. He was the one that sinned, but he wasn't the one that was cursed. It was his one son, Canaan, Noah's grandson that was cursed. The curse was not upon him. The curse was upon Canaan. Now, let me ask a question. Who did God use to write down the book of Genesis? A little quiz here. Who did God use to write down the book of Genesis? Who wrote the book of Genesis? Moses. OK, Moses wrote the book of Genesis. I believe by inspiration, God saw to it that Moses included in the word here this event about the curse upon Canaan, because what was just about to come following Moses lifetime, the total eradication of the Canaanite nation within the land of Israel. Why? Because of this verse and because of their expression of evil as a result of it, because their perverted practices coming here is no reason. The Canaanites are the Canaanites. They weren't black. Notice Canaan and Ham. Look at Genesis 10, 19. Genesis 10, 19. Let's see where the Canaanites lived. I think this will start to all fit together for you as you see how these things go. Verse 19 of chapter 10, the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon. Oh, you remember Sidon. That's still in the news today. Tyrant Sidon. As it comes to Gerar and to Gaza, that's in the south, the Gaza Strip you've heard about in the news as they go on to what? Sodom and Gomorrah. That's interesting, isn't it? You know, Sodom and Gomorrah was peopled by Canaanites. Why did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? Because of the immorality, the perversion within it. Why did God then go on and destroy the remainder of the Canaanites who lived in Canaan by telling Joshua to kill the man, woman and children and even animals? Is because they were the offspring of this perverted grandson of Noah, Canaan. It's interesting here. I think there's a lesson to be learned here. We see that Canaan's father, Ham, showed disrespect to his father and his son is the one that bore the curse. I think that's going to that's going to happen in our society as well. So many grown people, parents are disrespectful to their own parents. And I know that's a tricky area, it's difficult to care for parents, and I haven't had to do that yet, but there's so many people who are not don't even they put them in nursing homes, never visit them. They mock them. They make fun of them about their inabilities and they forget things and all these kind of problems that older people have. And they mock their own parents and neglect them and abuse them, and then they wonder why their own children are disrespectful to them and don't treat them with a value and respect that they should have. And I believe God has a lesson for us here as grownups. If we do not respect our parents, we can expect our own children to bear the curse and even their descendants after them. And perhaps not even in the way that we have done it, but in perversion. I believe that much of the immorality and perversion comes from the fact that in our society, there is little respect for older people. Somebody is telling me that's one of the reasons why it's been so hard to evangelize Japan. We go in them, tell they need the gospel because they learn how to live right, and then they look at us as Americans. They see how messed up our families are, how messed up our culture is, where Christianity is supposedly dominant and they see the respect. And I think that's one of the reasons why they're killing us economically is because they have respect in their culture and they have an orderliness in their culture that we lack. The Canaanites, you can look it up a little bit further, Joshua 9, 23, Judges 130. It says that it was a fulfillment of this curse, that it was the destruction of the people of Canaan. And I won't go into the details of morality when we study the archaeology of Canaan and see the kind of things that they're offering their children as sacrifices. And they're involved in all kinds of unmentionable perversions. That's why God had them destroyed. There's no racism here. There's no excuse for racism in the Church of Jesus Christ, in Christ for all one. Somebody said 11 o'clock is the most, is the most, what's the word? Segregated hour of the week in America, shouldn't be Church of Jesus Christ made up of all people. We're not together because this is a white church. We had some people come in here and said, oh, like this church, it's a white church. I said, well, we don't really have as many black people as we'd like to have here, but this is not a white church. This is God's church. We're together because we love Jesus, not because we're white. And if you're here because you're white, you're here for the wrong reason. In Christ, there is a unity that transcends racial, economic, all kinds of backgrounds. We're all one in Christ. Praise God for that. We are a new nation, a holy nation in Christ, made up of them who have common fatherhood in Jesus Christ and therefore are brothers here upon earth here and now. There's no place in Christ's church for racial prejudice, and if you've got a problem with racial prejudice and you look down on people of other races, you've got a problem. It's not somebody else that's got a problem. You've got a problem. I need to go before the Lord and realize that before God, God loves all people. He's made all people of one blood that dwell in the face of this earth. Now, people are different. I believe there are racial differences. I believe there's individual differences and there's family differences and we're all different. But in the eyes of God, we are of equal value to him. And in Christ, we have a oneness that transcends and must transcend all of those things. We'll get into that a little bit later as we move on through the next couple of chapters here and see some of these issues. But we see Shem, he says the Lord God of Shem is blessed. The Semites have been the ones who have especially been the ones that God has used to reveal himself through, and the Jewish nation came out of Shem and the Semites. He begot Jehovah, revealed himself through the Semite race, and then Japheth will be enlarged and he will dwell in the tents of Shem. And that's basically us in the West, how we we are not Jewish, but we have gotten our faith from the Jewish nation, haven't we? We dwell in the tents of Shem. We fellowship with Christ through what he has revealed through them. And so the curse was not on blacks, but it was on the Canaanites who were destroyed by Joshua. Well, just to sum it up, what can we learn from this passage? Several things you might want to make note of. First of all, we are secure in our salvation because of God's finished work through Christ, not our own. My salvation is secure in him, not in me. If it was secure in me, it wouldn't be very secure because I have my ups and downs, but it's secure in him who never changes, who has accomplished that covenant work. Secondly, the sin of drunkenness can destroy an otherwise peaceful home life. Don't start to drink alcohol. You can make that choice. You don't need it. You can be filled the spirit and have all the joy you need. Thirdly, we must not look on other people's nakedness. We must flee any type of pornography like the plague. It will destroy us. It will pervert us and will pervert our children. Fourthly, we must not mock our parents when they're foolish or when they sin or when they are unable to do certain things. We must respect them even when they are wrong. And fifthly, must show respect to our parents even when they're wrong. Or so that number six, that black people are no more cursed than anyone else. We're all cursed. You know that? We're all under a curse because of sin. Black people no more curse than white people. We're all cursed outside of Christ and we're all blessed in Christ and we're all brothers and sisters in Christ. What a wonderful unit that we can have as God blends us all together in the body of Christ to do his will. And then number seven, believers must set an example of honor and respect for their parents. I don't think there's anybody that ought to respect and care for and honor their parents more than believers. We ought to set the example for the world to see that we honor God and honor authority because we honor those who God has chosen to be our parents. Let's bow in prayer. Perhaps God has convicted your heart today as a believer. You say. You've not only stepped on my toes today, the Holy Spirit has pierced my heart with that sword of the word and I have some sins I need to confess. Do business with God right now. Confess it and don't argue with him. Confess it to him if you know what's wrong. Confess that sin to him. When our way of thinking disagrees with God's way of thinking, it's us that must change. So confess it to him right now. Tell him you've been wrong. Confess that sin to him, then ask for his cleansing and claim it. He said that he is able to cleanse us from all sin through his blood on the cross. If we'll confess our sins to him and then claim his power over that sin, you'd be able to conquer it in your life, whatever it is. He'll give you victory. You can't. Don't worry about that. He can give the victory if you're willing, if you're yielded to him. Then perhaps some here today say, I'm not even saved. I don't know God. I really don't know him personally. I can't say that I know in person. I can't say the Holy Spirit dwells in me. I'm not sure I'm saved. I'm not sure that I'm going to heaven when I die, but I want to be sure that's a desire in my heart today. How many just by the upraised hand would say pastor? We're happy to have with us tonight Graham and Libby Gucci from the Bethany Christian Services. They're quite active in this area in providing an alternative to young ladies who might otherwise seek abortions. And we praise the Lord for their positive action in dealing with this problem and leading young ladies to Christ. And so we're going to turn the rest of the program over to them at this time. I'd like to begin by just focusing for a few moments on a few verses of scripture. The verse that I would like to start with comes in what may seem like a very unlikely place, the epistle of James. In the very last verse of the first chapter, James says that pure religion and undefiled is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. When I first came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as my own savior and began to delve into the word, I always wondered about this epistle of James. And I agreed very much with at that time with Martin Luther, who said he thought it was an epistle of straw and he didn't want it to be part of the canon. As a matter of fact, even long before Luther, there was a long argument as to whether it should be part of scripture or not, because it doesn't tell me anywhere about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The new life is to be found in him. And I wonder, why is this part of the New Testament? Because, after all, I'm not interested in religion, I'm interested in a relationship, a relationship with the living God through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And here James is telling me that pure religion and undefiled before God is this. However, as I have matured some in the faith, I have come to realize, first of all, that James presupposes the gospel message. The people to whom he is writing have already responded to the good news and he wishes them to become mature. And he presents a very practical message. And whether we like the term or not, the practice of our faith is religion. And James is saying, for you who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we remember James's Jewish heritage and background, he says, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. In essence, he's not covering everything, but he's saying it's two things, personal purity and social concern. Personal purity and social concern. The church has been very big on personal purity. At times, however, it has not been quite so fast with social concern. And as I read this, I began to wonder, well, where does James come by that statement? What's the basis for what he's saying? And I find that if I were to look back into the book of Deuteronomy in particular, I would find a good share of his basis. Again, it is not exclusive. It's part and parcel of the whole social concern that God has in mind. But he focuses it, and that's where I would like to focus tonight. In the 14th chapter of Deuteronomy, towards the very end of that chapter, in the 28th verse, where Moses, as he's speaking to the people, is telling them about all that God has told him and the way they should live their lives when they come into the land. And he's now talking about the tithe. And he says, at the end of three years, thou shalt bring all the tithe of thine increase the same year and shall lay it up within thy gates. Why? Well, because of the Levite, he has no part nor inheritance with thee, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come and shall eat and be satisfied. And the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand, which thou doest. Somehow we see that Moses is telling the people that their relationship with the widows and the fatherless has to do with God's blessing upon them relative to the tithe. And then over in the 16th chapter, in the 10th verse, it says, when thou shalt keep the feast a week under the Lord thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee. And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou and thy son and thy daughter and thy manservant and thy maidservant and the Levite that is within thy gates and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow that are among you. And then he talks about the Feast of Tabernacles, starting in verse 13 and in verse 14, it says, and thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou and thy son and thy daughter and thy manservant and thy maidservant and the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow that are within thy gates. And then turning over to the 24th chapter, a practice that is so beautifully, beautifully exemplified for us in the book of Ruth, where it says, when I cut us down thine harvest in thy field and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it. It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, for the widow and the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands. And so we see the practice of gleaning is a provision on God's part for the needs of society and very prevalent in that society were the widows and the fatherless, the orphans. Well, we might wonder how that applies to us today. I mean, after all, we have overcome a great deal of the medical problems that would have been very, very widespread. Men did not live to the age they do today. And because they died early from hard work and everything else that was rampant at that time, there would have been many, many widows and many left without fathers in the land. However, we have a new phenomena in this world and in particular in our country today, and I would like to identify those, the young woman who is pregnant out of wedlock is a woman in need and without a husband and the child that she brings into this world for all intents and purposes is a fatherless child. Now, the society in which we live has an answer for this. That answer is get rid of the problem, have an abortion. However, for many, many girls, whether they're in the faith or not in the faith for many, many girls, the decision is for life and they wish to bring that child to turn and we see from the admonition of Moses and the admonition of James, the brother of Jesus, that we should have a concern for these widows, these husbandless women and their fatherless offspring. James also points out that it's one thing to be concerned about this. It's another thing to do something about it. And James says that's where the action is. I think the church has an opportunity today, far beyond any opportunity that's had for some time, as a matter of fact, to really reach out into a society that is crying desperately for help and need. Now, each church may not be able to do it individually. It's into this context, however, through the church that a ministry such as Bethany can minister to serve you and to serve the widows and the fatherless of our time. In Proverbs 24, verses 11 and 12, it speaks about rescue those that are perishing, hold back those that are being led away to slaughter. Then it goes on to say, but we didn't know anything about it, as if that's the response of the hearer. And then it goes on to say, does not God know you will be held accountable? We wish to be held accountable. And it's this ministry that we'd like to present to you this evening. We have a short slide presentation which shows about the work, the ministry overall, in a sense, in concept. Then my wife, Libby, would like to share with you some very personal things, some, you know, those stories that are really where the action is as to some of the ministry that we've been involved in over the past few years. How did a place like the farmhouse come about? Forty years ago, about, on a cold day in Grand Rapids, Michigan, two young women were getting ready to go to Bible school and they heard a little cry on the porch. They went outside and here in a basket wrapped up in a pink blanket was a tiny little infant, about two days old. Of course, they took that baby in and they cared for it. I guess they didn't go to school that day. About three days later, another baby was left on their front porch. And these two women felt that the Lord was leading them into opening their home for infants just like this. And in a short period of time, they had many more children. This was the beginning of Bethany Christian Home. After a period of time, of course, there was a need for adoption services because these babies needed to be placed into Christian homes. After a period of time, Bethany expanded to other states, became Bethany Christian Services. There were added, there was a home for special needs children, foster care developed. About 10 years ago, Bethany moved east, New Jersey. And then six years ago, they asked us if we would start the office here in the Annapolis area. Actually, this was the furthest thing that I had from my mind at that time. I don't have time to go into all of that, but I was the one that was asked to be the case worker to open this work. After this, after I got started, I realized that the greatest need that the girls had was housing. While we had this home, the farmhouse in Annapolis, there was a young woman who came to live with us. This was before we even knew anything about Bethany. Our daughters, we have three daughters, they were all leaving home by that time. And this young woman was asked, we were asked if we would house her. She came from a southern state. She was pregnant out of wedlock. And she stayed with us for the whole nine months, delivered her child and through a Christian lawyer in town, placed a child for adoption. I think this was the way that the Lord was really starting to work in our minds. We had, through the church, a great influence in that girl's life. She really came to know the Lord. She placed the child for adoption. And later she married a young man in the Coast Guard Academy. And today they have two lovely little boys and an adopted child from Korea. This young woman, her name is Paula, the day that further down the line, the farmhouse actually opened, we received a letter from her, which I'm going to read to you. She was very moved at the fact that the home where she lived for that period of time was to be a home for unwed mothers. And she said, I'm very busy now. I'm program chairman for our church in the women's work, taking a course in college and attending a lady's Bible study. I love it all. Here's a poem that I'd like you to consider. She said that it's I'm sending you this. You may get sick of me yet for sending you. She had sent me others. If for any reason you would like to print it, feel free. But please put my full name and date on it. I don't know if you are interested in poems like this since you're working with life, but I would like to have you read this. It's entitled Young Life. Young Life, halfway to birth, created in a moment's mirth, enjoys his place in Mama's womb, soon to be his private tomb, thumb and mouth and sucking hard, tapered fingers will soon be charred. See blue deaths like Daddy's eyes will never see the velvet skies. Ten small toes in perfection lined now to death have been resigned. Painful needle pushing in, salting lungs and killing him. Mama's choice can't be denied. My body is my own, she cried. And so her son must die too bad. That poem, that letter came the day that the farmhouse opened four years ago. As I started to tell you, soon after I started the work with Bethany, we realized that these girls needed a place to live and we couldn't seem to locate another place to to house them. And so we thought, well, the Lord wanted us to open our own home. So we started taking girls in. And soon after that, we realized that we were not to be the house parents. My husband teaches at the Naval Academy and I was going out seeing about thirty five other girls. I had a caseload of thirty five in a period of about a month. It was incredible. We hadn't even advertised and people just started to call. And so soon after that, Bethany said that they would work towards the process of licensing our home to be a home for unwed mothers and that we have been now for four years because of zoning problems. Anne Arundel County is great. I don't know if you've ever tried to work through the county here to do anything, but it's very, very difficult. They said that we had to be 100 yards, 100 feet from every lot line in one part of our house was not was a little closer than that. And we knew that we were going to be having problems. So we decided prayerfully a little over a year ago to relocate. This, again, is very difficult. Everything has restrictive covenants for a house like this. And so we went out into the south part of Annapolis and got five acres of land a little over that and placed a house. And the middle of this next month, May, Lord willing, we will and the volunteers willing, we will open the home now for 12 girls rather than eight. Our house parents are still with us. They've had a well needed rest and we are already doing intake. Some of the girls are already here in shepherding homes around the Annapolis area and we'll be moving them in. Now, what are the needs at the farmhouse? We have 12 girls there, all from different walks of life. There is no typical unwed mother. So I think sometimes people think, well, they're the street girls, the girls you see down there in Baltimore. That is not so. We may have one or two of those girls, but they come from homes, missionaries, children, ministers, children. They come from wealthy homes, from poor homes. It's it's epidemic. This is a tremendous problem. I'm sure you're very well aware of it. And these girls that have chosen to take the very difficult route to have their babies, to carry their children full term are in a way, um, really to be honored in a sense, I know the condition that they got pregnant is wrong. And of course we deal with this because we are a Christian home and we have very much teaching in this, but nevertheless, they are caught up in a society of relativism and of situational ethics where what is right today may not necessarily be right tomorrow. And you know, the situation among our teenagers today, it's, it's just terrible. The pressures on them are so great. And so we do have a very large segment of our society of young women who have this awful alternative to choose whether to take the life of their baby or to carry the baby full term. That is why the farmhouse is there. Now the needs. We have the girls there and they have very special needs. Some of them are far from home. We've had girl, one girl from South America. We've had a girl from the Bahamas. A lot of them come from around the area, but some are from other Eastern states and even out Michigan, um, Ohio, just pretty much all over. We've housed 86 girls since we started. And now we will be taking in 12 girls. This will give us more. Some people say, well, that isn't very much, just 12 girls. When you think of all of them, well, it's a start. We also have a home now in Virginia called Martha's house. And that is also, well, that, that will house 10 girls. So this is certainly better than nothing. And we're very grateful to the Lord that he has allowed us to have this. And he allowed us to use our home for this way. We have a need for special friends. Some of you may be interested in getting involved in this ministry. I really appreciated the, the person that sang the song and gave us testimony. I love that, uh, reach out to Jesus. He's reaching out to you. This is really the message that we want to, to give to our girls, because that's really what, what is the farmhouse is all about. It's, um, Jesus reaching out to these young women. The special friend is a program that we have. We're actually, they're called prayer parents or prayer partners. Um, each girl, when she comes to the home is assigned either a couple, a family or a single person who will promise to pray for that girl every single day while she's there. Uh, some people really get into this and they get to know her quite well, have her to their home, um, invite her to their church, uh, remember her birthday. Birthdays are very lonely time. They're away from home. And even if they didn't get along with their parents too well, they're very lonely for their parents or their, whichever parent is there at that time. Or they, or they might be remember them at Christmas time or Easter time or whatever special times that there are. We also have need for alternative house parents. Our house parents are there full time. Um, they're always as an adult with the girls. And so they need to have a rest every now and then. So we do have a need for alternative house parents, people who will come to be with our girls in the home for a period of maybe three days, sometimes five days. There is a little bit of pay that goes along with that. We need teachers in crafts. This is a, this is a time when these girls have a terribly low self image. They feel really raunchy about themselves. And so when they can do something with their hands and learn something, um, to put one of their talents to use, you talked about talents. This is a tremendous asset in helping the girl to, um, to reach the full extent of the way that God has created her. Um, so we need teachers, women or men that can teach these girls, um, something to do with their hands. We have, um, the need for birth coaches. As you saw, we had Lamont, every girl has to go through the Lamont's class. And so we need birth coaches who will come to Annapolis and go through the program with the girl at six weeks. And then she is available to go to the hospital with the girl. Um, we have what we call a 52 item list. Now there are 52 weeks in the year. And, um, there's an item of food for each week. Some people cannot contribute money. Their budget is just too tight for that, but they can buy an extra item of grocery each week and put it in the, in the market basket, can of tomato soup, can of beans or whatever it is, bring it together. Sometimes Sunday school classes or women's groups take this on as a project, bring it together and then bring it down to the farmhouse where we really, um, do the girls do that, uh, feed or eat from that, um, a good share of the time while we have been building this home, uh, we moved the program up to Pennsylvania. We didn't want to close it down because the need was so great. And when we were away from the home churches, we realized how much we depend upon the 52 item list. Our food bill was doubled during that period of time. Um, right now we need people who will help my husband get the house finished. This was a modular home that was, um, delivered to us from Greenwood, Delaware. Have you ever heard of the Nanticoke homes? Well, that's what it is. It's a Nanticoke modular home. It came in four sections put together. It's a two story home. At the end of the day, after they put it together, you could see it. You could go right through it. The wallpapers on the wall, the fixtures are on the ceiling, the refrigerator and the dishwasher. No, not the dishwasher, but the washing machine and the dryer are there. Everything was there. It was very exciting to watch this happen. But then there are other things that need to be done. The basement has to be completed. The, um, fire escape has to be built. The front steps have to be built. Nanticoke only provided the home. The other things need to be done. Landscaping, all of these things. If anyone is handy at that sort of thing, I'm sure I can tell you that my husband, who got, got, um, roped into this right from the beginning when I started doing this work, would just be very, very grateful to have your assistance. We even had last week, last Saturday, one of the unwed mothers who evidently loves carpentry. And she had delivered her child. She's now parenting her baby. And the woman with whom she's living was taking care of the baby. And she came out with her hammer in hand and Graham put her to work nailing up, uh, sheetrock that was already in place. We didn't have her put up a sheetrock. That's a little heavy, but it was there. So she did that. Now, what does it cost to house a girl at the farmhouse? It costs $35 a day. That's really overwhelming, isn't it? But that's what it costs. It costs a lot to save a life, the life of the mother and the life of the baby. We consider the fact that the mother who comes there and about a third of our girls already know the Lord Jesus Christ and two thirds do not. So we feel that it's important not only to save the life of that child, but to bring that mother into the knowledge, into at least the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ while she's there. Many of our girls have come to know Jesus personally while they have lived there. We have house parents who know and love the Lord and it's, it's a, the lifestyle it's living before them all of the time. That is the important thing. Many of the girls have never eaten around the table with the family. That's a whole new experience. If they ate at all, they ate on the run or they ate in front of the television. Mother and father, if mother and father were both there, were on the run, both with jobs, or maybe it was a girl that didn't have a father, father had long since departed, all different situations there. Um, $4 a day for foster care for the child. If the girl is deciding to, or are thinking about adoption for her child and in the farmhouse, there are about, it's about 60% of the girls that make adoption plans for the children. The children are placed in evangelical, fundamental Christian homes. Um, then she, the baby when it's born goes into a, uh, Christian foster home, nothing to do with the state. Sometimes that word foster home has connotations of state foster care. It doesn't, these are just people who, who open their home to infants rather than to the girls. And they will house that child for up to maybe three, four months. And then give that baby either back to the mother. Maybe sometimes she's just gotten her life together enough to be able to take the child back into her care or into the adoptive home. This is a very sacrificial job, but you know, our foster parents absolutely love it. And when they are without a baby, they're calling us and saying, well, when is the baby going to be born? We can't stand it. Our arms are, are empty and we, you know, they, they don't mind it. I'm so glad that I don't have to be a foster mother because that wouldn't be my thing at all. I don't like to get up at night and I don't like to have to give up a baby that I've, that I've loved and cared for. But some people really feel called to the Lord to do that. There is anyone here that would like to do that? Let me know that afterwards. Um, where does this money come from? Well, we depend upon the Lord Jesus Christ for that money. Uh, ever since we began and this young girl, Paula was the person that sent the first check, uh, to the home and she had, she and her husband have contributed ever since. It's just people like that who all over the United States who have heard about the farmhouse and have contributed. Of course, churches have gotten interested in the work. They have put us on their budget. It's like they put other missionaries on their budget. It's a different type of mission work, but it is a missionary work. Um, sometimes the girls, parents pay, they can pay partially. And I did the intake for the farmhouse for quite some time. And I would always encourage the parents to, to participate in, uh, helping us with the financial arrangements for their daughter at the home, because if they have their money there, then they're going to be that much more interested in working with us. And we do work with the parents as much as we possibly can. Oftentimes what that girl needs is to be reunited with her mom and her dad. The baby is not all that important when she can get back into the fold. Some girls have no money at all. They can apply if they're 18, they can apply to the state for public assistance and they get $120 a month, 30 of that we give to them for allowance. They have to have a dollar a day. To be licensed by the state, the state tells us that we have to do certain things. We have to have a dietician working through the, uh, food, uh, the meals and the menus. They also say we have to supply the girls with at least a dollar a day for their allowance. And so we have to do this. Some of the parents certainly, uh, supply that. And we really do encourage that very, very strongly. But we really do have some girls that have absolutely nothing. Some of them come from homes where they have been very severely abused and their parents could not care less. In fact, I've had a hard time contacting parents. I mean, they don't care where their girl is or whether she's, um, having a baby or what she's having. And so that's, that's where we do. We are very thankful for that little bit of money that we can get from the state. Uh, generally we do have to subsidize the cost of the girl living there. Now, what are the benefits to a ministry of this type? Well, we have the girl on an average of four to five months. And during that period of time, we have an opportunity with the Lord's help to redirect that girl's life. Um, families can be reunited. Hundreds of parents or would be parents that have no children are completed by having a child. It's wonderful. Whenever I go to the hospital to, um, pick up a baby and I've done that for many, many years and look at that little life and just think ahead, think, think back of what might've been, because many of the girls that we have, um, have, they, when I really get down in counseling with them have said the first thought they had was abortion and they had to really fight the temptation because nobody would know, nobody would know that they had ever taken that route. You know that a teenager has to have parents permission to get her a girl to get her ears pierced, but she doesn't have to have a permission to have one of the most serious operations that a child, a girl can have. I would love to be able to talk with you personally afterwards. If you have any questions, I would say that we are in the process now of raising $165,000. Isn't that a tremendous amount? We've already raised 88,000 since, uh, since January 1st, that is to pay for the farmhouse and for the operation expenses for both the office and for the home, um, any sort of giving to that, of course is greatly, greatly appreciated. I'm going to end my little talk and I see I'm a little bit over here with another poem. This is just to encourage you. It's called Be Strong by Malt Davenport Babcock. And it says, be strong. We are not here to play, to dream, to drift. We have hard work to do and loads to lift. Shun not the battle. Face it. Tis God's gift. Be strong. Say not the days are evil. Who's to blame and fold the hands and acquiesce. Oh, shame. Stand up, speak out, and bravely in God's name, be strong. It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong. How hard the battle goes, the night, how long. Faint not, fight on. Tomorrow comes a song. Thank you so much. I've just appreciated so much being with you tonight.