Boris Acapella, let your voices be heard tonight.
Faith.
Let's take our seats and open our hymns to page 410.
Faith is the victory.
Find your seats and open your hymns to page 410.
Faith is the victory.
I pray that you would fill Pastor Shelley up with your with your Holy Spirit and that you would edify us with your word
That we'd apply the message to our lives in order to live a better life for you in Jesus name. I pray amen
Our second song this evening page 49
Meet me there page 49 meet me there
Thanks so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you didn't already get a bulletin, you can lift up your hand nice and high,
and you can get one.
We're working on our new Bible memory passage, Jude 1-1.
And as promised, I have the prizes for Matthew 28.
Now, it's all kinds of different gift cards.
They're all $10 each.
And so you get two of them.
So if you complete it, I'm going to set them over here.
So you can just come on down and just pick two of your choosing.
If anybody completed math at 28, they can come and get two gift cards,
which are one they like, so you can come and get them now.
Let's give them a round of applause.
Well, I guess it's better to under-promise and over-deliver, so there you go.
On the inside of our bulletin, we have the service time, soul winning times,
and then we have our church stats on the right.
Our expecting ladies, please be in prayer for them.
Upcoming events, we have the baby shower for the Scott family, May 3rd.
Mother's Day brunch, May 10th. Please make sure you sign up.
There's either a sign-up sheet or you can do the ladies group.
You don't have to do both, just do one.
So, Winnie Marathon in Cleburne, Texas, May 24th.
Brother Sam Foley and Brother Evan are the ones that kind of came up with this idea.
And so, if you have any questions, they might be good to just ask them kind of, like, what the strategy is.
But we'll be just meeting out there in Cleburne in the morning.
Probably just at the park. We probably won't even have breakfast.
We're just gonna meet at the park, like, 10 a.m.
And then go swimming, have lunch, and then go back out.
If the park area...
Is not what we expect or there's rain or whatever then we'll have some maps is back up and we can go out somewhere else
So even if you drive out there, you should be able to go soul winning no matter what
but the idea is that there should be about a thousand plus people hanging out of this park
that are Marshallese and testimonies have been that they're pretty receptive so it's just an
opportunity to go out there. Soul Winning Marathon in Durant is the following week, May 31st,
Pastor Dylan Oz of Anchor Baptist Church is going to be joining us and we're going to be
soul winning with them and so it'll be great to see them out there in Oklahoma.
It's kind of just another small town as well.
It's about halfway between us and them.
Baby Announcement, congratulations to the Lugo family on the birth of Annalise Marie.
She was born on the 14th, 9 pounds, 11 ounces, and 20 and a half inches long.
Congratulations to them.
On the back, again, as those details of the baby shower,
please make sure you RSVP to Ms. Milstead.
Prayer list, on the prayer list,
we're going to be continuing to pray for the naeems
if you'd pray for their grandmother.
I think, actually, they had an update, didn't you?
And she's recovered.
She's out of the hospital.
So things have been going well.
Just thank you so much for the prayers.
Just continue to pray for the Carlson's
if you'd pray for Ms. Rebecca and David.
And then if you'd also pray for the Miller's friend's mom
who's still having cancer treatments.
We're praying for brother Scott's parents
as well as his wife.
Continue to pray for their health.
We're also praying for brother Garcia and his health.
Praise report for the good wins their friend Sarah is cancer-free and has
recovered I think she's gonna be returning to the States so that's
great miss Larky's also continue to heal from her arm if you just pray for her
pray for brother Brad's father and sister's health
and their personal work.
Continue to pray for Brother Diego's friend,
Ms. Morris, for her health issues.
And then Ms. Cindy also had a prayer request
for one of her friends, Ms. Angela, for her health.
If you'd pray for the Afsals,
unfortunately his father did pass away recently
and so they are gonna have services,
I think on Saturday as a viewing,
and then
or and then I think the following day is a celebration of life and so I posted the
details of that in our group chat but if if you'd like you can contact us or
email us or Brother Sue Hale and he can give you the details on that and we'll
continue to pray for their family. Also pray for Brother Stewart's mother who's
struggling with Alzheimer's disease so we'll just say a quick word of prayer
as a church family.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for our church.
Thank you for the ladies who are expecting.
I pray that you'd please be with them for their pregnancies.
Please help them for their delivery.
I pray that you would also just help all of our friends
that are struggling with either cancer or serious illnesses.
I pray if possible, you could just give them healing.
Please help them to recover.
We thank you for those that have recovered.
And for those that have gone to be with the Lord,
I pray that you would just comfort their family members,
that you would use this opportunity as an opportunity
for the gospel to be shared.
And I pray that you would just continue to bless
our church family where they need work or jobs.
I pray that you would also help our upcoming missions trips
that we could get many people saved
and that you can continue to guide us in all that we do.
It's in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
That's all I have as far as announcements. We'll go ahead and sing a
New song I am at the resurrections that we're seeing are we singing the where it's okay. Where are the spirit blows?
Sorry, I wasn't sure which one you're doing where the spirit blows in our hem binders
All right again, where the spirit blows in the back of your binder the last page
Know y'all are tired tonight, but let's hear that shout on the go at the end there and it better get louder each time
So better hear you shout it. All right, where the spirit blows
All the herbs
Let's do it!
Matthew chapter 19.
Matthew chapter 19 the Bible reads and it came to pass that when Jesus had
finished these sayings he departed from Galilee and came into the coast of Judea
beyond Jordan and great multitudes followed him and he healed them there
the Pharisees also came unto him tempting him and saying unto him is it
lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause and he answered and said
unto them have you not read that he which made them at the beginning made them
Man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they twain shall be one flesh
Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh what therefore God has joined together let no man put us under
They said unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put
her away?
He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put
away your wives.
But from the beginning it was not so.
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and
shall marry another, commiteth adultery.
And whoso merrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
the man be so with his wife it is not good to marry but he said unto them all men cannot receive this same for there are some
eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb and there are some eunuchs
which were made eunuchs of men and there be eunuchs which have made
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake he that is able to receive
it let him receive it then were there brought into him little children that
he should put his hands on them and pray and the disciples rebuked them and
Jesus said suffer little children forbid them not
to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven, and he laid his hands on them and departed
thence, and behold, one came and said unto him, good master, what good thing shall I do that I may
have eternal life? And he said unto him, why callest thou me good? There is none good but one,
that is God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He said unto him, which,
Jesus said, thou shalt
do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear
false witness, honor thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
The young man saith unto him, all these things have I kept for my youth up.
What lack I yet?
Jesus saith unto him.
If that will be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt
have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me.
But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Barely I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly
enter into the kingdom of heaven.
And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
They were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?
But Jesus beheld them and said unto them, With men this is impossible,
but with God all things are possible.
Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee.
What shall we have, therefore?
And Jesus said unto them, Barely I say unto you, That ye which have followed me.
In the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
But many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be in church.
Thank you for this church.
Thank you for Pastor Shelley.
I just pray that you fill him with your Holy Spirit,
help him to preach a word unto us
and help us to receive it.
And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Matthew chapter 19 verse one says,
and it came to pass that when Jesus had finished
these sayings, he departed from Galilee
and came into the coast of Judea beyond Jordan.
And great multitudes followed him
and he healed them there.
The Bible says in verse three,
the Pharisees also came unto him,
tempting him and saying unto him,
Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
Now, one thing you have to notice about the Lord Jesus Christ
is a lot of people followed him,
but also people with not sincere intentions also followed him.
And a lot of bad people would constantly be there to harass him.
And the word tempting is kind of like trying or testing
is what we're really kind of alluding to here.
A lot of times when we think of tempt,
we think of like enticing to do evil.
But that's typically not the way the Bible uses it.
Typically the word tempt in the Bible is more like test.
So they're kind of like testing him
and they're wanting to see what he's gonna answer.
They're trying to trip him up.
They're trying to get something to accuse them.
They're trying to get, pull one over on him.
And really, you know, if you serve God long enough,
you'll realize there's a lot of people like this,
that they come to church,
or they ask questions of the church, not sincerely,
not because they actually want to have information.
They just want to attack.
They just want to throw out accusations.
They just want to do you some harm.
And so you shouldn't always,
answer every question.
You shouldn't feel burdened to always answer every single person.
You know, when you can perceive this person's a troll,
when this person's not sincere,
when this person's not wanting a real answer as an enemy,
many times you don't necessarily want to answer them.
Give them all your time, give them all your attention.
Sometimes Jesus, you know, gives these people some attention,
sometimes he doesn't.
But he's also very careful in how he answers his questions.
They ask him here in verse number three,
is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
Notice they kind of want an excuse to put away their wife for every cause.
But another thing you can think about is this question's not sincere.
So we don't really know exactly what they mean.
All we know is that this question is designed to cause a problem.
This is a problem question.
And I think...
This is just my speculation, what they're thinking.
I don't know for sure, but this is what I think
the Pharisees are trying to do.
They can't answer this question because they kind of think that the Bible has a contradiction here
They kind of think that you should be able to divorce your wife for every cause
but that the Bible doesn't really say this and so they're kind of hoping just like trip Jesus up on something that they
themselves don't really understand in the Bible because they can't really figure it out and
also, there's a peer pressure here because
If you skip down notice what it said in verse number
11, but he said unto them, all men cannot receive this saying.
So by answering truthfully or answering what the Bible really says on this issue,
he's going to offend a lot of people.
And so I think from the Pharisees' perspective they're typically probably not wanting to just push the status quo or cause a ruckus or get people to be upset with them so they often probably answered in a very vague way or in a way that didn't really answer the question.
They're the kings of talking without saying anything.
And this is what you'll notice about false teachers and false prophets is they're able to just talk for so long and you're wondering like are they ever going to make a point.
Does this even make any sense?
And often they try to confuse you.
They make you feel like the reason why you don't understand
is because you're not intelligent,
not because they're bad at speaking.
And for the most part, if you're listening to a saved Baptist pastor,
you should be understanding what they're saying if you're listening, okay?
Obviously, you can sit here and daydream and not pay attention or something.
But as long as you're paying attention, you should be able to pick up what's being put down.
Otherwise, the person is a bad communicator.
You know, you shouldn't necessarily just instantly think like,
I must be too stupid to understand the information.
It might just be that they're a bad communicator,
or they're not communicating the Word of God very well, okay?
Pharisees often give an uncertain sound and they want to use this tricky question here.
How does Jesus answer? Verse 4, and he answered instead of them,
have you not read?
It's interesting that Jesus doesn't just give them like a yes or a no,
or he kind of rebukes them immediately.
He just says like, how do you not know the answer?
Like, oh, you want the answer? How come you don't already know the answer, right?
Have you not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female?
and said, For this cause shall the man leave father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh."
Now, I think the reason why he's kind of giving that response too,
is that they're a Pharisee.
Isn't there an expectation that if you're a teacher of the Bible,
that you should have certain levels of knowledge?
He's saying, hey, how is it that you're a master of Israel
and they'll know it's not these things?
Have you not read?
And it would be kind of confusing,
like if somebody's read the Bible,
cover to cover 10 times, 20 times,
if they just don't understand basic things,
you'd kind of think like, what's wrong with you?
Have you not read it?
Because if you read it,
well then you either have a reading comprehension issue,
you're not saved, like there's something,
there's something seriously wrong here.
You could be ignorant.
But if you're not ignorant, then it's a major problem
if you're a master of Israel,
if you're a teacher of the Word of God
and you don't understand these things.
And he's saying, look.
It's so obvious, this is the very beginning of the Bible, Adam and Eve, God put them together,
why in the world will we separate the husband from the wife?
It makes no sense.
They're one flesh.
The Bible gave us this doctrine in Genesis, that when you get married, man and woman come
together, they become one flesh, and their name is called Adam.
You know, that's why I believe we have the tradition of wives taking their husband's
It's embarrassing if a man ever takes his wife's name.
That is embarrassing, it's shame.
It's really just a mockery of the Bible too.
It's a mockery of the role that you have as a man.
Yeah, you take the husband's name,
and I like that tradition.
It seems biblical.
You become one flesh.
Now it says in verse 6,
wherefore there are no more
twain, meaning two,
but one flesh,
what therefore God have joined together,
let not man put asunder.
So he does end up answering the question.
What is the answer?
Let not man put asunder.
What is the answer?
Never divorce.
He's asked can we divorce for every cause and the answer is let not man put us under don't allow it
We shouldn't allow this to happen. This just shouldn't happen
Divorce should just be off the table and really let me just give you some great marriage advice divorce should just be off the table
And you say in what way and the way that it'll never happen
Here's another way that you'll never say it. You never even you'll never even threaten it
You'll never suggest it
You won't even think about it, it's off the table.
It doesn't come up, you don't threaten it,
you don't bring it up, you don't suggest it,
you don't entertain it, you only look down upon it.
We only look at it with shame and reproach
and we preach against it and we don't suggest it.
Now look, someone that has been divorced,
I'm not trying to sit here and beat up on that person,
you can't change it.
But at the end of the day, I'm not gonna sit here and excuse that sin just like I'm not gonna excuse the fact that we lie
I guarantee everybody in this room's lied before but I'm not gonna sit here and say lying's good because we've all lied
I'm not going to sit here and say stealing is good because of the people that steal.
I'm not going to say, hey, it's good to disobey your parents because we all disobeyed our
parents one day.
No, hey, and if you divorce, sorry it was wrong, it's not biblical, God is not pleased
with that, and there is no justification for divorce.
Notice the Pharisees want it for every cause.
This is called no fault divorce.
that you have in America coming in 1969.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
I want to get there in a moment.
But you know what?
The Bible is saying no.
Now what do they answer?
Verse seven, they say in them,
why did Moses then command to give a writing
of divorcement and to put her away?
Now I think that, I think again,
based on my just reading in the text,
I think they knew Jesus would say this.
they thought they would ask this question and then they were going to end up
tripping them up. So that's why I'm saying they just kind of like don't
believe the Bible or they don't really believe the doctrines and so they
thought they had figured out a whole contradiction in the Bible and many
times they're like atheists. You know if you go to these seminaries, if you go to
these higher institutions of learning where you're supposed to learn theology,
many times it doesn't even seem like they believe the Bible at all.
It seems like they themselves even believe in all kinds of contradictions and have goofy doctrine and weird ideas
And it makes me think of these Pharisees who don't seem to really believe the text because he he didn't even answer them in his own way
He just said, didn't you read the Bible already told us?
This is what the Bible says.
And then they're like, well, then why does the Bible say this?
Well, we should just know for a fact
that there's no contradiction in the scripture.
We should just know that Moses is not contradicting Moses.
We should know that Genesis is not being contradicted
by Deuteronomy in any way, okay?
But then they're just simply trying to suggest
that there's somehow a contradiction.
Verse 8, he said then that Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives.
But from the beginning, it was not so.
And I say in you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except to be for fornication,
and shall marry another, commit adultery, and whosoem marryeth her, which is put away doth commit adultery.
So, he explains that the Moses provision
It's not the perfect will of God, but was technically allowable in the Old Testament now
Let's go there for just a quick second
I'll explain that good to do not Deuteronomy chapter 24 because everybody likes to focus on the exception
They don't even a focus on the context the context was number one never divorce
The second aspect of this was that, yes, there was technically an exception,
but that exception was because of the hardness of your hearts,
again, a very negative mention, saying even though this might have even been lawful,
it was still not the right thing, it's not the best thing to do, it's not the best course of action,
because we have to understand that the law is a certain level of justice,
whereas God often wants us to go beyond what is just.
on what is equal because according to the law you know it's supposed to be eye for eye tooth for tooth
So that's what's equitable. That's what's just equal, but many times God wants us to not only
Just be just he wants us to go beyond and have mercy and have grace and be long suffering
You know someone smites you on the cheek
You turn to them the other also and in this concept, you're not giving them what they deserve. It's not justice. It's mercy
It's grace. It's charity. Okay, and in the same way God doesn't give us what we deserve
What we deserve is hell what we deserve is death for our sins
But God went beyond justice and showed us mercy and showed us grace and in so in the same way
The Bible is kind of alluding to the fact that yes
Technically, according to the law, what is just in some situations is technically divorce
could have been just in a sense, but you know what?
It was also for the hardness of your hearts, and it's not what God prescribes, and it's
not what God wants, and even from the beginning, it didn't even exist.
God's perfect will is that divorce doesn't even exist, that it's not even allowable.
Now, the quote divorce exception in the Bible, though, is kind of misleading in our modern
vernacular because we don't even describe what the Bible is describing as divorce, technically.
We describe it as more of like an annulment.
And so really the Bible kind of has a quote in annulment clause.
It doesn't really have what we think in our modern idea of divorce that doesn't really exist
in the Bible as even being just because somebody might have misheard me and said,
oh, he said divorce is just.
No, the biblical divorce, but that's more of like an annulment.
And again, I still am against it.
I still think it's wrong.
I'll never tell someone to do this.
or to exercise this provision, okay?
I'm gonna follow what Jesus said
and say, let not man put us under.
Now, it says in Deuteronomy 24, let's just read it so we understand better.
When a man had taken a wife and married her and it come to pass that she find no favor
in his eyes because he had found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of
divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house.
And when she's departed out of his house, she may go and be in the man's wife and if
the latter husband hate her and write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand
and send her out of his house or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife.
Her former husband, which sent her away,
may not take her again to be his wife.
After that, she is defiled,
for that is abomination before the Lord,
and thou should not cause the land to sin,
which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance."
So, here's the idea of uncleanness.
Well, again, I guess because it sounds a little vague,
that's where the Pharisees then just inserted everything.
They just said everything.
But they didn't really care to really understand the law.
Now, in Deuteronomy 22,
If you look at verse 20, it talks about a woman who lies about being a virgin.
He says, but if this thing be true and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel,
then they shall bring out the damsel of the door of her father's house
and the men in their city shall stone her with stones that she die.
Because she had to rot falling in Israel to play the whore in her father's house,
so she'll have to put away evil from among you.
So there's a couple of different scenarios.
Number one, you get married.
to a woman that you believe is a virgin.
She told you she's a virgin.
It's believed she's expected a virgin.
You pay the dowry of her virginity,
and then you discover on the wedding night
she's not a virgin.
The Bible prescribed if you desired
to put her to death for that playing the whore, okay?
The second option though,
is also on the table here in Deuteronomy 24,
that this uncleanness,
and I think it's kind of in two scenarios.
The first scenario could be what we see
with Mary and Joseph,
where Joseph cannot have Mary put the death
because she's found pregnant before they come together.
That's just off the table.
It's just not even an option because they are under Roman law
and you can't put anyone to death.
So I think you could just say,
okay, well then they had this second provision
in that scenario where you're ruled over by someone else,
death to penalties off the table,
then you still have this as an option.
And that's what the Bible says about Joseph,
is that he thought to put her away privately.
And that's what he's describing here is,
because in his mind, the only way she got pregnant,
since he had not known her,
was she was with some other man until the angel came and told him to fear not and take marry
thy wife because that which is conceived of her is of the Holy Ghost and so she had not known a man
and she had not been unfaithful and so he stayed with her and he did not know her till she had
given birth unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Those Catholics need that word till in there okay
but then later he of course had many children with her.
Second option here is is where potentially the death penalty is on the table still. Let's say we're in Old Testament Israel
But it's not necessarily
Expected that she's a virgin
Perhaps that's just already known that this is not on the table. She isn't lied about it. It's just
But here's the problem. She has a disease. She has some kind of a serious issue
Well, and the reality of the situation is, you know, because of having decency and modesty
You're not gonna know that until you get married
right? So it could just be on the wedding night. Okay. Didn't realize that was there.
Didn't realize this was going on. And so as a result, they're able to put them away.
That's what I believe would be the second situation. Both though are kind of an annulment
situation where essentially it's like you get married, you figure it out right then and there.
And then it's dealt with and every other scenario you can pretty much think of is already been dealt with
Because if we're talking about adultery that's already dealt with in previous chapters and it's just death penalty
So it's not that kind of uncleanness. That's the death penalty
It's not lying about it because that's already dealt with death penalty. So it's just this other I believe scenario where it's maybe not
She didn't lie about it, but it's just still not something he's willing to tolerate
And so as a result of she could be put away so
You know, let's go back to, we would,
Matthew chapter number 19,
Matthew chapter number 19.
And actually I want to go one more place.
I want to go to 1 Corinthians chapter number seven.
One thing I want to kind of just address
is the fact that if you notice what's going on,
pretty much in all the passes that deal with marriage
and divorce is what we're dealing with
is essentially the duty of marriage.
You kind of notice there's a pattern here, right?
When we're talking about these issues, it's like,
hey, there was a problem with the duty of marriage.
She was a whore in her prior time.
Hey, there's uncleanness.
Hey, when you put them away, you're causing adultery.
And there's this idea that what's the main problem here
is it's either infidelity or there's some kind of issue
in this area.
And that's what the Bible brings up.
Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 1.
Now concerning the things wherever you wrote it to me is good for a man not to touch a woman nevertheless to avoid fornication
Let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband. How does the Bible prescribe avoiding fornication?
marriage
So that must mean that it's a really important
You know aspect of marriage then and I think that this is the problem
We live in society today where we live in a kind of a feminist culture
and they've really just destroyed and perverted the ideas of marriage
and they've tried to change a lot of what marriage is about
and they've tried to make it about this like over-the-top
romantic novel or something like that or fairy tale
or something like that. Whereas the Bible is just like, hey, this is how you avoid
fornication.
And it seems like, for some reason, people don't realize that this part of marriage is the duty of marriage.
And what does the Bible say? Verse 3,
Let the husband render unto the wife dube and evalance, and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband, and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife,
defraud ye not the other, except to be with consent for a time, they may give yourselves to fasting and prayer,
and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
So, say, any doctrine, any belief, any idea, any statement that is causing couples to not
perform the duty of marriage is satanic.
That's what the Bible says.
And let me just give you a little bit of a taste of the world today.
The number one cause of divorce in the United States is infidelity.
Now, what does the Bible say?
The Bible says that you should come together
that Satan tempts you not for your incontinency.
Incontinency is your lack of self-control.
It's kind of a difficult word.
It's not something we typically use.
Incontinence, typically when people use this,
they're talking about how they can't
go to the bathroom in time or something,
or they have an issue there, okay?
That's what it's typically referring to,
but it's just simply like, you know,
you just can't control it.
And think about it, if you were sick,
If you're sick to your stomach, you can't control it, right?
We can all control it when we're healthy.
When you're sick, it comes and you didn't want it to happen.
But it just happens.
It's inevitable in some cases, right?
And it's basically saying, hey, if you are going
to defraud your spouse, you're putting your spouse
in a situation where they're sick to their stomach
and you could cause them to cause problems by incontinency.
And the Bible is just basically saying you need to make sure that this area of your life,
this area of your marriage, you're not giving Satan a place to cause you problems or to
cause you to stumble or cause some kind of a wedge to get driven in there.
And honestly, let's just be honest,
a lot of times when couples are fighting,
sometimes this area of their life gets disrupted.
And you know what, that can cause it to get worse.
You know what, couples need to make sure
that they're taking care of this area
because it's a very important part of marriage.
This is the reason you're getting married.
Paul even says, if this was off the table,
you shouldn't even get married.
That's what Paul's opinion is Paul's just saying hey, if you didn't even if you don't even have struggle with this
Then just don't even get married
But he's saying but to nevertheless to avoid fornication
Let every man have his own wife and let every wife have her own husband
and then you're supposed to render dupe benevolence.
It's saying this is the main aspect of marriage.
This is the main component of marriage.
And you know what, there's just a lot of weird ideas today.
There's a lot of strange ideas today.
Catholics will try to teach you,
oh, you know, that's not appropriate.
They'll say it's even kind of a sin.
Or they'll say it's a sin,
except for in very specific circumstances
and all this just weird satanic doctrine.
Number one, it just sounds bad.
Number two, it's satanic.
It's unbiblical, okay?
And we need to make sure that we're doing this part
of our marriage because we don't want to destroy marriages.
We don't want divorce.
What's gonna cause divorce?
Infidelity and defrauding each other.
Often it'll start with the defrauding.
and then it leads to the infidelity
and then it leads to the divorce.
That is often the typically the case.
And so, you know, if you wanna really make sure
that your spouse is not gonna do this,
you should just take care of this area.
Now, I'm not trying to blame people.
Obviously somebody could be a great spouse
and the other person could be rotten
and just make a big mistake.
But at the same time, many times people
are defrauding each other.
and then they're basically just kind of putting their spouse in an uncomfortable situation,
putting them in an opportunity where it's going to be easier to be tempted or causing issues,
and it's just, it's just ugly.
You know, we need to make sure, as married couples, that we're not defrauding each other
and that we're making sure that we're taking care of one another,
because that will really ensure you stay close.
You're supposed to be one flesh, and that was purposeful.
The Bible brings this up, and the Bible brings up in 1 Corinthians 6, the chapter proceeding
that when you lie with a harlot, you kind of like have that intimacy.
You have that one flesh aspect.
And you know, it's not appropriate when you're not married.
You know, husbands and wives should, you know, be married.
You know, boys and girls should not live together unmarried.
They should be married together.
Okay, and that's what the Bible is describing.
Gov'y would back to Matthew chapter 19.
So, you know, marriage is a natural thing.
It's a good thing.
And we want to make sure that we're not defrauding each other
because it caused all kinds of problems.
It will cause problems.
You know, I've unfortunately heard people tell me,
you know, they've gone years
and I'm just I'm just thinking like,
that's just a recipe for disaster.
That's insane.
Okay, that is insane.
And that should just never even be a reality.
And so, you know, you need to make sure
that you're taking care of each other.
And you know, I'm not gonna put like some frequency,
you know, to it, that's between you and your spouse,
but it should be regular, it should be often,
and it should be as your spouse needs,
not so much what you want, it should be as they need,
you know, and as they want, because it's not your body.
I've already preached it, it's not my,
it's my wife's body, my choice.
And it's,
My body is her choice, you know, it's vice versa.
And you know, for some men out there they think
that's insane, but it's real.
It goes both ways.
And you know what?
It should always be that we take care of each other
and we're taking care of each other's needs in this area.
The Bible says also in verse number 10,
he says,
his disciples say unto him,
if the case of the man be so with his wife,
it is not good to marry.
I get this point.
And I think that, unfortunately,
a lot of single people in America get this point today.
And this is like a major issue,
is that people are just very upset
with the idea of marriage today
because of the possibility
of getting their feelings hurt or their heart broken.
Because he's basically saying,
oh, you're saying that if I marry this woman,
there's no consequences to her action.
And in a sense, yes.
But in another sense, no, not at all, okay?
And this is really why a lot of things are just so screwed up
because we live in a feminist hellhole in America.
And when you essentially empower people to have no consequence,
they often just act horribly.
They act just uncontrollably bad.
You know, a lot of people get mad at rules,
but without rules, you would act like animals in many cases.
In fact, wherefore serve at the law,
it was added because of transgressions is what the Bible says.
And many times, you know, you have strict rulers,
strict rules, you actually act better.
When you have loose rulers and loose rules, you act worse.
And you know, in America, society has destroyed
and stripped away the authority of a husband
over his wife and marriage.
It's just completely gone, their authority doesn't work anymore.
The way of our system doesn't work anymore.
Women have been yielded pretty much all the power in relationships in America today.
In America, women have so much power and authority today because women can just divorce their
husbands for any cause.
And so if women aren't getting what they want, they can just say, well, then I'll just divorce
And not only that, women could commit adultery, divorce their husband, and then the husband will still have to pay her bills, pay his alimony.
Pay alimony, pay child support.
Well, she should be put to death biblically.
She can do this.
And look, women are doing this all over the place.
Women are doing this in America.
And what's insane is that men still hold authority over women in the natural world.
Men are still the physically stronger of the two of the two men are just the physically stronger physically dominant
mentally dominant, and we have more earning power
But our society has flipped it upside down and given women
authority over men to where they can basically hold men to some
unrealistic accountability
of, hey, I know I committed adultery on you, but I can still divorce you and I can just
take all your money and take all your goods and take half your assets and take your family
and take your kids and take your dignity and take your honor and take your respect.
You know what?
And such a wicked evil thing that's happening and we're allowing and empowering women to
rule over us because here's the reality.
Women cannot yield this power.
Women can't have this power.
Women have no ability to enforce this power.
You know what they do?
And it could be a woman judge,
but they'll go to Judge Judy or whatever,
be granted a divorce.
And they'll say, okay, you get half the goods,
you get the kids, you get the whatever.
And then just think about the natural order of things.
The natural order of things would be like, come and take it.
And then it's just like, it's over, you won instantly.
But what will happen if you say that, then cops will come.
then lawyers will come, then men will come and enforce
evil, satanic, evil, horrible, wicked things against men
and they will take your paycheck away from you. They will get into your bank
account
and they will just take the money out of your bank account without you asking.
They will just come and they'll arrest you if they need to they'll just come and seize your house and seize your assets
Men will just take everything away from other men at the behest of some scornful woman
And we've empowered women in our society to have this power over men and it's ugly
It's satanic. It's disgusting and look just because this is true
You know what you women need to be godly and just decide to submit anyways
This should just not even be on the table.
It should not be something that's ever threatened.
And you know, you might think like,
oh, well he's saying he's gonna be away with it.
No, no, no.
God will probably just destroy you
if you decide to go down this path.
Don't think that you're going to get away with it.
You might temporarily think that you're winning or succeeding, but you will be destroyed and
your emotions will be destroyed and your heart will be broken also and you will just suffer
so much loss because of this.
They think that they're empowering women, but by the end of the whole equation women
realize they lost.
They lost and they didn't get what they wanted and it's not how they wanted their life to turn out.
And they often find some horrible... I mean, after you just did that to some guy,
what normal man would want to be with you after that?
What sane person would think like, oh wow, I just watched you destroy this other guy's life.
Please, can I get in line next?
You know, often what happens is
Even more evil guys than you someone worse than you will come and pray on you and take advantage of you often
Child molesters and predators will pray on single women that have divorced their husbands to get access to children
And they'll pretend to be that nice guy that you didn't have and to be that shoulder to cry on and just do whatever you say
Just to get access to hurt children
We have such a screwed-up society and such an evil society and when you go against God's word, boy
it just has all kinds of downward spiraling ramifications to give you some idea because
historically
divorce has not always been on the table anyways and
especially in a lot of Christian
nations throughout history. It wasn't even legal. It wasn't even an option.
Women didn't even have this power.
In 1857 in England they passed the matrimonial act
and it was limited to adultery, cruelty, and desertion.
But boy, we gave the crack open, we cracked open the door
where finally women could divorce their husbands.
But prior to this, I mean, just for hundreds of years,
if not basically, not only a millennia, I don't know,
it was pretty much divorce, this wasn't even possible.
In Europe, there was no option.
And, you know, biblically speaking, when you think about this, apart from modern America's society,
if a man divorces his wife, she's way worse off.
She's the one that doesn't have the money, the goods, the earning power, to fend for herself, whatever.
So she would be the one that would be capitulating to the husband in often cases.
It's just in her modern day society where the rules have reversed in many cases.
And it really didn't even happen in America until 1969.
Just to give you an idea, in 1920, less than 1% of all women in America were divorced.
In 1920, less than 1% of all women were divorced.
In 1940, only 3% of women that had ever been married had been divorced.
In 1969, California passed the No Fault Divorce with your favorite governor, Ronald Reagan.
Oh, everybody just loves President Ronald Reagan.
the guy who signed into law, no fault divorce in California, Ronald Reagan.
And it was for irreconcilable differences, whatever that means.
It sounds like the Pharisees love it.
Every cause, every cause.
Now in America, 15% of women are divorced.
Huge escalation.
When they look at statistics on divorces, 70% of all divorces are initiated by women.
If your wife is college educated, 90% of those divorces are initiated by the woman.
Sounds like college is really, really good, huh?
41% of all first marriages into divorce.
50% of just all marriages in all categories end in divorce on average
60% of second marriage is in a divorce
73% of third marriages end in divorce and then they're dead by that. I don't know
This is sad
And you know you think like oh divorce is a good thing well
Then why is it that they have a higher likelihood of getting divorced the next time?
Let me explain it to you because they were the problem
Divorce is not a solution, really, you're just the problem in many cases.
And we notice that it's being initiated by lots and lots of women.
Now I saw another statistic, this was professions, so this is men that have jobs that have the
lowest divorce rates.
So if you're kind of nervous about this, okay, this is how to hedge that bet, all right?
This is, I'm gonna go from the fifth down to the first.
So this is the fifth best profession,
or the fifth profession with the lowest divorce rate,
is farmers, all right?
So farmers only have a divorce rate of 7.63 out of,
I think, like a thousand or something.
Number four was podiatrists.
It's probably because all those good foot massages
they can give or something, you know?
At 6.81, number three was clergy.
at 5.61, number two is optometrists at 4.01,
and then number one was agricultural engineers.
So, and it was only 1.78.
So apparently the farmers and the ag guys,
they're the ones that know how to stay married.
But at the end of the day, it's just a sad, sad reality.
You know, maybe the ag and the farmers
It's like the wife realizes, like, how much they need their husband.
Because you know what? Women can't go out there and do the farm work and the ag work like a man can.
And maybe it's just a little bit more obvious for them that they realize they need that man.
But at the end of the day, we all need to realize that, you know, men are important.
Men are the leaders. Men are the God-given authority. And women need to submit to that.
And it's frustrating. You see these guys like, oh, then it's not good to marry.
if women have this power and authority.
But you know what?
Even in America, they have pretty much as much power and authority as we can give them,
and yet I still believe it's good to marry.
Now, go over to 1 Peter chapter number three, go to 1 Peter chapter number three.
We need some women to break this cycle.
We need some Christian women to show
that they're willing to submit under their husbands.
Now, let me explain something, submitting under your husband
agreeing with them when you agree with them.
This is what some women think.
This is what a lot of women think,
is they think, well, I would yield,
or I would submit to my husband if he was perfect.
Sorry, that's never gonna happen.
And then they say, oh, what if he was close to perfect?
If he was near perfect.
Like, I'll do what he says when he's pretty close to perfect
or doing that which is right.
That's not what the Bible teaches at all.
The Bible doesn't teach this.
Well, okay, I know he's not perfect and he's not going to be perfect,
but when he's acting right, that's when I'll submit to him.
Wrong again.
Look what does the Bible say in 1 Peter chapter 3?
Likewise, you wise being subjection to your own husbands
that if any obey not the word,
they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.
While they, behold, your chase conversation coupled with fear.
Notice that when a husband is disobeying the Bible, disobeying the Word of God, not right
with God, what does the Bible say?
It says that the wife is still going to do something, she's going to be in subjection
to her own husband.
Meaning it doesn't matter if your husband's good, bad, throw word, right with God, wrong
with God, you just do what your husband says in your subject undead period.
and they behold your chaste conversation.
Notice this, coupled with fear.
Who are they afraid of?
They're not afraid of the husband,
they're afraid of God.
And you know what?
We all understand the fear.
What's sad and sickening today
is how women totally understand this
and don't apply it to the husband.
You know where they understand this?
The job that they have.
Because when they go to their work, they don't mouth off to the boss.
They do whatever the boss says because they're afraid of getting fired.
But then for some reason, they go home and they don't show the exact same respect
or appreciation or subjection to their own husband.
It just doesn't make sense there are women that will go to work and they don't like their boss
They think their bad boss is a bad person, but then they'll just do what he says anyways because of fear of losing their job
But for them some reason they don't make the connection that okay
Hey, if I'm at home and my husband is my boss, you know what I could still lose my job
But you know is gonna you're not gonna lose your job God could cause you to lose your job
Have you not read in the Bible? I mean the Bible makes it clear God causes women to get sick God causes women to get barren
God causes women to get all kinds of harm to lose their children for their children to die to have bad children and for
Themselves to even die in the Bible
I would not want to be a woman that is just in constant rebellion to her husband,
constantly attacking her husband, going against what her husband says.
You know what? It's garbage that women treat their bosses at work better than their husbands.
It's garbage.
Only in America where we have so many goofed up ideas and satanic ideas as this exists in America
And you wonder why there's so much divorce
Well number one because you're defrauding each other and then number two because women aren't subjecting themselves under their husband
Let me tell you something if husbands and wives are showing douban evidence and they're they're not constantly fighting
Because she's being a subject
You're not gonna have very much divorce
It's gonna disappear
It's not going to happen. It's because of those two things that it's mainly mainly happening
And you know what you should show the same level of fear towards your husband as you would your boss
You know, I I knew someone really close to me. This is years ago
Long time ago. I knew a woman who just randomly just
ran away from her husband
Didn't tell her where she where is she's going
Took one of the children just just disappeared just they get mad at each other and she just disappears
For like days or a week
You know that's evil that's wicked
Same person becomes a boss babe later
Well
Here's the sad reality, this person died much younger than they would normally do and the
other person, the husband, is still alive and kicking and very old.
You think that's a coincidence?
You think it's a coincidence that she is just going to do these kind of things to her husband
and then nothing's going to happen?
You know the Bible says to honor thy father and mother thy days may be long upon the land
which is the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Let me tell you something you should keep the commandments like your life depends on it
You know why because your life depends upon it
And don't think like oh well my husband's a good guy, so then God will be good to me. That's not how it works
God judges everybody according to their own works
Be not deceived God is not mocked for what's to remain so if that should also reap
Hey, you want to treat your husband like trash God might just replace you. It's called Vashti. Have you ever heard of Vashti?
Have you ever heard of Micau in the Bible?
Who disrespects her husband and then God curses her
to where she has no more children ever again?
And look, it's vice versa.
How about Nabal?
Nabal's a trash husband.
Nabal's a piece of dung.
And then Abigail prays,
and then that guy's heart just dies within him
and he just kills over.
And then Abigail's with David.
How about Zephora?
Zephora is just like a super rebellious wife and pretty much we just, and she's with Moses.
If anybody was going to preserve because of who their husband was, it was Zephora,
but then it's just like, she's out of the story.
Nobody knows what's going on with her.
Moses ends up marrying someone else.
I would say, presumably, I can't say dogmatically, I would presume maybe Zephora died or left her.
Well, who knows what happened?
How about Rachel?
Rachel died young and she was a rebellious spirit. She's taking idols. She's hiding things
She's not having the right attitude the right spirit
Ananas in this fire or they both died because they're both wicked, you know
Obviously bad husband bad wife. They could both die young
That husband he could die young bad wife. She could die young
and get replaced by someone else.
You know, the Bible has the jealousy curse.
Remember when the husband has to take the wife
and she has to drink the bitter waters?
And guess what?
If she did bad, her belly will swell
and her thigh will rot
and she's just gonna be diseased and cursed of God.
Look, I just don't get why women today
think that they can just act and behave however they want
and think that God won't punish them.
You know, we need the fear of God back in this country.
We need the fear of God back in homes today
where wives would submit under their husbands
as under the Lord, is what the Bible says.
To submit under them on everything.
You know, it's just embarrassing the society that we live in.
And you know, if you don't like what I'm saying right now,
maybe you just watch too much TV.
Maybe you're just watching too many sitcoms
where women are bossing men around
and telling men how to behave
and so you got this stupid idea in your head.
You know what?
Why should be meek and quiet?
That's what the Bible says.
What does it say?
Verse 3, who's adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of the plating of the hair
or of wearing of gold or putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart
and that which is not corruptable, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which
is in the sight of God, a great pious.
You know what meekness is?
It's humble.
It's saying, look, you're just not in charge.
You know, if you want to drive men out into the wilderness, be an angry and a contentious
You know the meek person just says you know what? I'm not in charge
You know why is need to be subject under their husbands not telling them what to do not constantly
Criticizing them not getting on their case all the time boy
You want to see unhappy marriages you see the wife is just always icy and cold and always
contentious and always critical and always arguing and always angry and look it is a dangerous path to go down
Because, boy, every man in here is a sinner.
I mean, if we all got a hyper-critical spirit of each other,
we could sit here and nitpick on everything
and get mad about everything.
But you know what, that's just going to destroy each other.
You know what, wives should look at their husbands
as their hero, as their lord.
Meaning their boss, they should treat them with respect.
I mean, the way that you would talk to your boss at work
is the way you should talk to your husband.
Probably even better, honestly.
If you read the song of Solomon, they're just constantly praising each other.
And if you listen to the lady in the song of Solomon,
she can't say anything negative about her husband.
It is just praise, praise, my beloved.
He's gonna sleep till he wakes.
You know, don't even bother him.
Whatever he wants, whenever he wants.
I'm his garden and he can come into his garden
and he can eat whenever he wants
and she's gonna serve him.
And you know, you look at Esther, a biblical model.
Hey, when she wants to ask her husband something,
she makes him two meals before she asks him.
You say, you just sound crazy.
I sound biblical.
Sorry, America has brainwashed you into thinking that you should tell your husband what to do.
I'm against divorce.
If you're against divorce, then you should love this preaching.
Because you know it's causing divorce in America today is because women are defrauding their husbands
and then they're telling them what to do.
And they're even using that to tell them what to do.
Saying, oh, if you don't do what I want, then you won't get what you want.
Garbage!
And you know what, if you don't want to do that,
then God may curse you.
God may do all kinds of things unto you.
And I'm not saying this because I hate you.
I'm saying this because I love you.
Let me tell you something.
The person that I brought up earlier in the story,
I love with all my heart and is very dear to me
and is very sad to see them go young.
I don't want that to happen to other people
that are dear to me.
And women need to get in line
and women need to submit to the authorities in their lives
just like children need to obey their parents.
Why does it need to obey their husbands?
Husbands need to obey their boss at work.
And you know what?
Church members should obey their pastor in the church.
Lest you get a 1 in 17 trillion skin disease
and have horrible pain,
over 40 lesions all over your body,
taking hours and hours every day
just to wind up all of your sores on your body,
lest you get infection and die.
That's real, by the way.
Look at verse 11 but he said to them all men cannot receive this saying
Save they to whom it is given. Hey, this is hard preaching
Not everybody can handle this and not everybody can handle the idea of just never getting divorced
You know you preach on divorce always being wrong
You say hey, you should never divorce for any reason and people just get super mad at you
And people always want to know like the people want to come to me with marriage problems and this is what they really want
Let me just explain, all marriage requests to me.
Please tell my spouse why they're bad.
I'm just being honest with you.
And I'm not, it's not literal, but pretty close to it.
I mean, it just, it feels like a lot of people,
they're just like, hey, will you tell them why they're wrong?
And it's like, look, all I can do is help you.
All I can do is just tell you what to do.
And you know, if you like say, hey,
I have marriage issues or I've asked people
Jump in the boat, we're all riding on the same boat, okay?
Everybody's gonna have marriage issues,
everybody's gonna have marital spats,
everybody's gonna have, you know, things that are going on.
And what's funny to me is like, many times people
that have issues, they're not even that bad,
they just have no idea, okay?
They just really don't even know, okay?
But at the end of the day, you know,
we need to make sure that we're committed to each other
and we're saying, hey, I'm in it, I'm in it to win it.
As men, we should do everything we can to sacrifice and love our wives and as wives you should do everything you can to sacrifice and love your husband and we need to treat each other with respect and we need to compliment one another and we need to not defraud one another and we need to set an example of saying,
hey, you know, we're not going to be like the world, we're not going to get divorced. And you know what, if a man divorces his wife, he's a scumbag. You know, and even more so if they came to our church and learned the truth on this issue and then they did it anyways.
It's a shame.
It's embarrassing.
It's shameful.
It's not being a real man.
Real men will just take their wives,
hey, if it's Zephora, just grab her
and put her on the camel and bring her with you.
You know what I mean?
Let God deal with her, okay?
But you don't put her away.
You know, we should never give up on our spouse.
We should always love them as much as we can
and do good unto them.
But let me tell you something.
You know what?
You being a good spouse isn't gonna help your spouse.
I mean, it might help them decide to be one over,
like the conversation of the wife,
but at the end of the day, they have to decide
to be a good spouse on their own.
You're going to be accountable for all the things
that you said and all the things that you did,
and God is watching.
Look at verse number 11, or verse 12, I'm sorry.
where there are some eunuchs
which were so born from their mother's womb
and there are some eunuchs
which were made eunuchs of men
and there'd be eunuchs
which have made themselves eunuchs
for the kingdom of heaven's sake.
He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.
Now, there's a stupid idea that eunuch
is like a sodomite that's not true.
There's basically three categories.
Number one is it says that some were born.
This would be someone that's just born with a deformity.
And it's pretty rare, but it can happen.
And, you know, let's just, let's just be honest, if it's a Y, it's a guy, all right?
Genetically speaking, if they have the Y chromosome, it's a guy.
There is a technical exception where they can receive a Y that's damaged and didn't
work, but then it's basically like not receiving it.
So essentially, less than 0.001% or something like that, or less than 1% of that is even
possible.
But if it's got a Y, it's a guy.
But at the end of the day, just because you have chromosomes, you could be born with a
a physical issue and you just can't perform.
And really, that's how I describe Unix,
is just someone that can't perform.
They can't perform the duty of marriage,
and so that's what a Unix is.
You could be born where you just can't perform.
A second option is that something happens to you,
you weren't born this way,
but something happens to you from birth to the present
that causes you to not be able to form in the bedroom.
This could be from some either just accident, injury,
or in many cases, mutilation.
Like you see with the children of Israel
that are taken captive of the master of the eunuchs
in the Babylonian captivity.
That was something where they had mutilated them, okay?
And that's not happening in America today
where a lot of people remutilated,
and it's disgusting, it's gross.
The third one was that they made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake
Some weirdo thinks that this is like self mutilation now. It's basically just saying it's a choice
This is like Paul Paul the apostle is choosing not to get married
So he's choosing not to perform in the bedroom in any capacity so that he can just serve God
He's not gonna commit fornication. He's not gonna get married. He's just gonna serve God
And he's choosing to be a eunuch even though he may physically be capable. He's just not gonna do it
So those are the three categories of eunuchs and that's what he brings up.
Verse 13,
You know, some people would try to keep children out of church.
We need to have kids church.
No, no, no.
We should let them be in the church service and we should suffer them.
Meaning allow.
You know, suffer we typically think of like being tortured but and that can sometimes exist, but no
We're just saying hey, we should allow them
Okay, we should allow them to be in here and Jesus loves little children and it kind of gives this illusion
That it's almost like heaven just filled with lots of little children and I don't think that I don't know how it works
I don't know if when little children die they get like an adult version of themselves in heaven
But like physically, but maybe mentally. I don't know. I don't know how it works
But I do believe that a lot of children from our side of the equation
Have passed and gone to be with the Lord
Obviously all kinds of abortion and so stands the reason that there's probably just a lot of children
That are in heaven as a result of having been innocent not having a chance to have understood the gospel
So again, you know, we're talking under five and whatever I think most of them are probably
If they died, they would just go to heaven
because there's no way they could understand the gospel.
So, but, you know, once they start to understand it,
we should make sure to try to get them saved.
Verse 16,
Now, it's kind of interesting how he answers this,
but you have to understand the question.
I think the question is a flawed question.
and that's why he answers this way,
what good thing shall I do
that I may have eternal life?
It's a flawed question in the sense
that it's impossible to earn your way into heaven.
But think about it, in a sense,
Jesus is still answering that question with a truth.
How could you earn your way into heaven
by keeping all the commandments?
Technically, if someone kept all the commandments perfectly,
they would enter into life.
But the only person that will ever do this is Jesus.
Jesus is the only person that kept all the commandments and enters into life.
Now he also brings up this idea of like, hey, there's none good but one.
What's the definition of good? Keeping all the commandments.
So what's implied here is that, hey, if you're calling me good,
are you recognizing that I've kept all the commandments?
Because there's no one that could keep all the commandments
except for God, anyways.
So there's a lot of layers of this,
but number one, this guy needs to realize that he's not good,
and he's also needs to realize that Jesus is good.
Because you know what saves us?
Recognizing that we're not good,
and recognizing that he is good.
because we have that substitution.
We realize that he was perfect,
and so he could have told him for our sins,
and that we're not perfect, and we need a savior.
If you don't understand that you're not good,
and that Jesus is good, you can't even get saved.
To get saved, you have to realize you're not good,
and that Jesus is the only one that is good.
There's none righteous but one, and that's God, okay?
And he's saying, well, if you want to keep the commandments,
he say them to him, which?
This is funny, this is like your Lordship salvation crowd.
where they think like, oh, I want to make Jesus the Lord of my life.
And what areas, though, exactly, like, how many areas do I have to do it?
You know, because they always want to lower the bar
when they say you have to keep the commandments to be saved.
Isn't it funny, Lordships use twice in the Bible
and neither of them have anything to do with salvation?
In fact, it's kind of like a negative mention.
Yet then people say Lordship salvation is like a biblical thing.
Well, it's just not in the Bible.
Now, Jesus answers, thou shalt do no murder.
He's thinking like, okay.
Thou shalt not commit adultery. He's like, all right. Thou shalt not steal. That one's pretty iffy
He's probably thinking like big things in his head, you know, thou shalt not bear false witness. Oh that got him
Honor thy father thy mother and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself
Now in his mind, this is what's so funny
He this is how he answers the young man save on him all these things that I kept from my youth up
What lack I yet
He always honored his father and mother liar
He never bear false witness, liar.
He says he always loved his neighbor as himself, liar.
Verse 21, Jesus say to them,
if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast
and give to the poor, and thou start up treasure in heaven
and come and follow me.
But when the young man heard that saying,
he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.
So Jesus kind of knows like, hey, this guy,
there's something I could bring up
that this guy is not gonna be able to say, yeah.
I got that one and it you know where it really hurts him is the money
Now I've heard people try to tell me literally they read this passage and they say I've had someone say this
This is the greatest picture of salvation in the Bible is
This story and I thought like the guy didn't even get saved
I'm like like wouldn't you pick a story where the guy even got saved at least
Like that's bizarre and they said yeah because it shows that you have to be willing to give everything up in order to get saved
And it's like, no, and if that was the case,
no one would be saved because even the poor person
doesn't give everything up.
I've never met, I don't even know this person.
And I'm not saying it doesn't exist,
but I'm just saying like, virtually,
I don't know anybody that said I've literally sold
all of my possessions and given them all to church.
No matter what level of riches you have,
even just the poorest person in this room
would struggle to do something like that.
That would be a difficult task under them.
And again, salvation is not sell all that you have to get eternal life, salvation's free.
It's an absolute free gift, but he is trying to earn his way into heaven, he's trying
to say he's kept all the commandments.
He's a bozo, and so you know what?
He gets these answers, okay, if you want to be perfect then do this.
But notice he didn't say, oh I got that too, he just went away.
Why can't do that?
I'm not capable of doing that I
Can't because and in and saying hey, I I guess I'm not perfect
So then what do I need to do to be saved?
Right isn't that kind of where he's leading him. He's trying to get him to realize he can't but instead of just being like oh, okay
Well, then what about to be saved he went away sorrowful still thinking he had to earn his way into heaven
And you know what, there's a lot of Catholics that walk away from the faith, still thinking
they have to earn it, and they just realize they can't.
Isn't that sad?
And that's why we show up with the good news, and we try to give them the free gift of salvation.
We try to help them understand, hey, it's not about doing good things, because yeah,
we would all walk away.
I already screwed up too much.
I can't be perfect enough.
This guy got that point, but instead of coming to logical conclusion,
well, then what do I have to do to be saved?
He still walked away thinking, like, how am I going to earn this?
Because I don't want to give away all my money.
And it's sad.
Why will people not get saved?
It's pride.
Because he wanted to earn it.
At the end of the day, we look into this guy's heart and what is it that stopped him from getting saved was the pride in his heart.
He thought he was good, he didn't want to recognize that Jesus was good,
and he didn't want to recognize that, hey, I'm not capable of keeping the commandments.
He was just sad that he felt like he wasn't going to do it.
He went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.
Then he said, Jesus, unto his disciples, very light saying to you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.
And again, I say, and it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying,
Who then can be saved?
But Jesus beheld them and said unto them,
With men this is impossible, with God all things are possible.
Now that's an interesting phrase. I think what he's trying to imply is no one can keep all the commandments,
but God can.
God could keep all the commandments.
I like, it's like they didn't quite get it though
because they're like, then who can be saved?
But the guy didn't ask to be saved.
The guy asked to inherit eternal life.
Did you notice?
They're still confused because they have the right mindset.
Well, then how do you get saved?
Okay.
But at the end of the day,
no one can enter into the kingdom of heaven through their works.
And this rich man is just an example of how rich people
hardly ever get saved
because they're usually the most prideful people.
You know, sometimes we think like, oh, man, I wish I had more money.
But maybe that would make you a worse person.
Having more money sometimes makes you very prideful.
I've known people that seemed pretty humble,
and then they get a lot of money and they become pretty prideful.
You know who did this in the Bible? Saul.
King Saul was kind of little in his own sight,
and then later he became king, had riches, and had money,
and then, oh, now he's got an ego.
Now he doesn't want to lose it.
He didn't even want to be king.
Think about this, Saul didn't want to be king.
He hid among the stuff, but then as soon as it was threatened
that he might need to step down and allow someone to come in,
he wouldn't allow someone to take it.
That's a complete different attitude.
He at first didn't even want the job,
and then now he refuses to let anybody else have it.
That's what you call pride.
It's pride where you won't submit yourself
to the things of God.
And we have to allow God to humble us to get saved.
That's how you even get saved.
Notice that there's a humility aspect
of this whole chapter.
And marriage, we need humility.
And the parable here, we need humility.
He says in verse 27, then answered Peter and said in him,
Behold, we have forsaken all and follow thee,
which shall we have therefore?
And Jesus said in him, Verily I say unto you,
that ye which have followed me in their generation,
when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory,
ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
And everyone that hath forsaken houses or brethren
or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands,
for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold,
and shall inherit everlasting life,
but many that are first shall be last,
and the last shall be first.
So, I think that verse 27 ties back to if you look at verse number 21, notice that Jesus
had told this guy that he would have treasure in heaven if he followed him.
And so I think for them, they were thinking like, well, I am saved and I did follow you.
So then what am I going to get?
And notice that God's not a communist.
He says, well, the guys that actually followed me, notice what they're going to get.
They're gonna receive a hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life. Not only you get everlasting life, you get a hundredfold!
All kinds of things, lands,
brethren and sisters and everything. Other passages that bring up this parable say, in this life and in the next.
So in many cases you trade one family member for another, a physical brother for a spiritual brother,
physical aunt for a spiritual aunt, a physical sister for a spiritual sister.
And in many cases, you just get all kinds of different things
in the house of God that you are replacing
with the physical house that you have.
And it's sad because some people literally
have to forsake their brother or their sister
or their father or their mother or their wife
or their children.
That's a lot.
Notice again, not all marriages
are gonna be a match made in heaven.
You know, we love to say that match made in heaven or when I grew up there was this idea
It was like I want to like I'm waiting for the spouse that God's picked out for me
Who's heard something similar that or they grew up with that kind of an idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but wait a minute
Isn't this saying like some people are gonna literally have to forsake their spouse
Was that the spouse that God picked out for them?
Well, if it was it wasn't a match made in it wasn't really a happily ever after story
Hey, you know what a match made in heaven was how about when God told, Ozea to marry a whore?
That was a rough marriage
Moses' marriage is rough and you know I only say that to give hope to the people have a screwed up marriage
Don't use as an excuse to screw up your marriage. All right, but I'm just saying like hey
If my marriage got screwed up, if I was a true disciple, I would still serve God.
If my spouse didn't want to serve God, if I was a disciple, I would still serve God.
And God expects us to serve God no matter what our life circumstances are.
For some of us, we have a great spouse. I have a great spouse.
My wife's awesome. I don't have this issue.
But I can empathize with people that do because
my spouse is so important to me that I can't even imagine
having to make that choice if I had to actually
make a choice like that.
And God willing, I would make the right choice,
but it's easy for me to say
it's a lot harder for people that are actually going through it to say that.
Children.
Parents, you know giving up on these type of relationships, but you know serving God sometimes calls for that
Not always obviously we should seek to have the closest relationship with our parents and our our spouse and everybody that we can
But it could be in a in some scenarios where it's just not possible
And I typically say, hey, come with me to serve God.
It's not like, hey, I'm trying to get away from you.
Come with me to serve God.
They choose to not serve God.
They choose not to do the right thing.
They choose to rebel.
They choose to do that, which is evil.
And they're gonna suffer the consequences of their sin.
But at the end of the day, you know what?
We should serve God regardless.
And again, that's humility.
That's humility of us just saying, you know what?
Whatever God wants me to do, I'm gonna do it.
Go through to 2 Corinthians chapter five.
Notice that the Bible is saying,
That you're going to be rewarded according to your works
There's this stupid idea out there that how you live your life doesn't really matter
Hey, once you're sanctified you're always sanctified. That's heresy in the context of
Progressive saints sanctification. There's a thing there is a context in which sanctification lasts permanently
Once you get saved you're set apart as a child of God and that is permanent
But you know what? We should also work on sanctifying ourselves every single day and setting ourselves apart
And not only, not only just for reward's sake,
number one, just to stay on this earth.
Because when you don't sanctify yourself,
God could cause you to go home early.
When you do sanctify yourself,
the reason why you're sanctifying yourself
is to unto good works.
You're trying to be a vessel unto honor.
You're trying to set yourself up for success
into getting good works.
And then why do you do the good works?
So they'll be rewarded for all of eternity.
You're only gonna spend, you know,
God willing, 80, 90 years on this earth.
eternity is so much longer therefore we should look with an eternal mindset of
how am I working towards getting lots of rewards and staying on this earth as
long as possible you know when rebel against authority you know you're
gonna get taken home soon I mean how many people are constantly getting
cancers and getting all kinds of diseases and all kinds of illnesses and
look I don't want to be Joe's friends and just say every time it's a result of
sin but I also don't want to say that it's not I also don't want to say that
I think in many cases, it probably is.
And what does the Bible say in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 10?
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ
that everyone may receive the things done in this body according to who hath yet done,
whether it be good or bad.
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
Notice that there's a terror of the Lord.
It's terrifying to stand before God and to be judged.
And look, I don't believe that necessarily for all of eternity, you're going to suffer
shame and embarrassment for all the bad things you've done.
But there is going to be at least a moment.
of shame. There's going to be at least a moment where the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter
number three, you're going to suffer loss. If all you have is wood, hay, and stubble,
the Bible says you're going to suffer loss. That's a negative feeling. The tear of the
Lord's obviously a negative feeling. You are missing out on something. And obviously,
it's not all perfectly equal. Some people are going to have a little bit greater joy.
I think that all of heaven is joy.
I think that all of heaven is bliss.
I think that we're all comforted.
I think it's all blessed to be in the kingdom of heaven.
But there's also more blessings.
There's blessed, and then there's even more blessed.
And you know what?
I'm not sitting here saying,
I can't wait to just get to heaven, hit the nuke button.
I want to try and earn more rewards.
And I want to try and be pleasing unto God.
Because I know one day I'm going to have to stand before God
and give an account for the life that He gave me.
for the wife, for the children, for the actions that I did,
for being a pastor, I mean, be not many masters,
I'm gonna be judged more harshly for the things I did
than someone that's not as a pastor,
for how I ran the church.
You know, people can get all mad at me,
but guess what?
I have to stand before God by myself and answer.
And so I try to make sure I'm doing what this says.
And at the end of the day, we need to make sure that we don't let pride destroy us.
I want to go to... I know it's a long sermon. I preach long sermons.
All right. Go to one more verse. Go to Proverbs chapter 16. Go to Proverbs chapter 16.
To me, this is the theme in this chapter. So much is just pride.
Pride is just such a... is just an evil, evil thing. It causes people to not get saved.
It causes people to destroy their marriages.
And it causes people to get off track and not serve God with their life.
It's an evil, blinding disease.
Proverbs 16, look at what it says in verse 18,
pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
The Bible also says, only by pride cometh contention.
Only by pride cometh contention.
Now, here's the thing, whenever there's contention,
just know for a fact pride exists.
Pride exists anytime there's conflict.
And you know what? We can almost always, just by the situation,
immediately know who's prideful.
If children are arguing with their parents,
you know why? There's pride in the child's heart.
And we already know who's wrong. It's the child.
The child is automatically wrong when there's contention.
Now, again, it doesn't mean there can be,
there can't be some level of disagreement or some suggestion.
We're talking about contention.
We're talking about strife.
When there's contention and strife, there is pride present.
And whenever there's an authority structure, whoever's supposed to be in subject is the
prideful person.
Meatness and humility just says, you know what, I'm not in a position of authority,
you're right, I submit, I'm sorry, I will be meek.
The child, as a child, your parent is right, you just obey them, you just say yes sir,
yes ma'am, and you do what mom and dad said, period.
Whenever there's marital strife, let me just say something, the husband is right.
You know why there's marital strife and contention because the wife is prideful.
If she was meek, she would just submit and just say, you're right and just move on.
At work, if you're in strife with your boss, you know what? Well, guess what? You're the prideful one.
And let me say this, when there's contention and strife in the church,
And you're arguing with the pastor, you're wrong.
Why?
Because you're prideful.
You're prideful.
And look, the people that get thrown out of a church
for being railers and attacking the church,
they're always the most prideful people you'll ever meet.
Kids that are constantly trashing their parents
and arguing with their parents
are the most prideful people you'll meet.
And let me tell you something.
Women that are contentious with their husband
are just some of those prideful women.
arrogant, haughty, and you know what it causes? Destruction!
That's what the Bible says.
And you know what? We should just take heed.
Because I've noticed some really prideful people
constantly attacking us, attacking me, attacking our church,
constantly getting destroyed, hand over fist.
Marriage is destroyed, children destroyed, lives destroyed, people died.
Why would you want to constantly do it?
When will you fear God?
Don't let it be you as the example.
Let someone else be the example.
Let the guy with 40 lesions on his body be the example for all of us.
Because you know what?
If you won't fear authority after seeing that example,
nothing will convince you, and you're in dangerous territory,
that God will have to do something to you.
We need to submit to authority.
And when we see some in the Bible, we just do it.
I know I'm preaching to the Wednesday Night crowd,
but you know what? We all need it.
obey. Let's go to prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for our church. Thank you so much for
these these hard lessons, these hard truths of the Bible. I pray that you would help us all to
have a humble spirit and not allow ourselves to get prideful and arrogant and attack the
authorities in our life. I pray that if we've been doing that you would give us grace that you
belong suffering with us. That you'd help us to have a meek and humble spirit that we could just
Have the reality that your authority structure is right
I pray that you could just bless marriages in this room that you could just help the men and women in this room never to get
Divorced to never allow that to be a conversation
It's never be something that's threatened for people to never just like run away from each other from people to not
Attack the authority structure that you've laid out
I pray that we would be humble and meek enough to submit under the authorities their lives so we could get lots of rewards
by serving you and doing great works,
and that we do all these things
in the name of your Son, in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Our last song this evening will be page 43,
We're Marching to Zion.
Page 43, We're Marching to Zion.
Sing it out loud to the Lord on the first.
Come, weep.
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