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Man, the title of my sermon this morning is overprotective fathers and brothers, overprotective fathers and brothers. Of course, protecting our daughters, our sisters, and other loved ones is a good thing. However, this mentality, like many other good things, can be taken overboard. It can be taken too far. Pretty much any good doctrine can be taken to unbiblical and unrighteous extremes. We want to make sure to study the Bible to get our viewpoint on these things, because in this story, we have some men who go completely overboard reacting to something that happened to their sister. And part of the purpose of the Bible is to teach us what is right and what is wrong, especially when we're reading Old Testament stories and Old Testament scriptures, proverbs, prophecies, whatever. It's to teach us what is right and what is not right. Now, everybody has their opinion about what is right in any given situation, but at the end of the day, we need to always be willing to change our point of view to match what the Bible teaches instead of just saying, well, you know, I think this is okay, or I think this is not okay. At the end of the day, the Bible is the final authority. And as we're reading the Bible, we should always be looking to amend our viewpoint so that our minds and our views can be brought into conformity with what the Word of God teaches. Now, before I get into the applications of this story and get into a lot of other scriptures that we're going to look at, I want to just go through the story here with you point by point, just to make sure that we're all on the same page about what took place in this story, because this is a story that is sometimes misunderstood. Okay. The Bible says in verse number one, Dinah, the daughter of Leah, which she barren to Jacob went out to see the daughters of the land. So she seems to be just going out by herself based on the chronology. She's probably a teenager, so it's just a young girl going out by herself, not with any malicious intent, but just to go out and see the daughters of the land. And it says in verse number two, when Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her and lay with her and defiled her. Now the key thing that we need to understand going into this story, and you're going to see as we go through the rest of the chapter that this is true, is that this was a consensual act between Shechem and Dinah. The modern versions get this totally wrong. They actually translate this as, oh, he raped her. He took her, he lied with her and he raped her. That is wrong. That is not what the original Hebrew is saying. The King James Bible is translating this correctly, and that interpretation makes absolutely no sense. It really just ruins the whole story, ruins the interpretation of the story, totally twists things, and I'm going to show you more about that as we go. But the Bible just says that he took her, he lay with her and he defiled her. This is not saying that he forced her, and the Bible will use that word in other places to talk about people being forced. She's not being forced here. She's been seduced. She's been sucked in by this guy. This guy sweet talked her or whatever, and she ended up committing fornication. Now, of course, fornication is a major sin in the Bible. The Old Testament talks about this, and then the New Testament really hammers the fact that we are supposed to wait until we are married to have that physical relationship of sleeping with our spouse. That's for after you're married, okay? And premarital sex is a sin, and it's a big sin, it's a major sin. There's no question about that. And so this unsaved man, this heathen man, commits this horrible sin. Dinah is also in sin because she is participating in this as well. It says in verse number three, his soul clave unto Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel and spake kindly unto the damsel. And she comes spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife. And Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter. Now his sons were with his cattle in the field, and Jacob held his peace until they were come. So obviously this creates a lot of anger in the family. Jacob hears about what happened to his daughter. The brothers hear about it. They're all upset. They're all angry. And this young man who has committed fornication with his daughter, he actually wants to marry her. He loves her and wants to, you know, ultimately make an honest woman out of her and marry her. It doesn't excuse the sin that he did, but this is what he wants to do now. He wants to marry her. Well, obviously dad knows that the brothers are really upset about this, and so he doesn't want to have this conversation without them there because he wants to make sure that everybody's on the same page, and he doesn't want to agree to anything if it's going to cause problems or whatever. You know, whatever reason, I'm just trying to guess why he waits until the brothers come to have this conversation, but he does. So the brothers come out of the field, and it says in verse six, and Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto Jacob to commune with him, and the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it, and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth because he had wrought folly in Israel in line with Jacob's daughter, which thing ought not to be done? And here's the thing. That's the narrator talking. It is folly. Folly means it's stupid. It's stupid. It's wrong. It ought not to be done. And honestly, getting angry about this is a natural, normal reaction, right? Somebody fornicates with your daughter or fornicates with your sister. The normal reaction would be rage, anger. You're furious because they've wrought folly. They've done something that ought not to be done. They have disrespected her. They have devalued her. They have committed an abominable sin in the sight of God. And so obviously this reaction is normal. It says in verse number 8, And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter, I pray you, give her him to wife, and make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, take our daughters unto you, and ye shall dwell with us, and the land shall be before you. Dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein. Now Shechem himself speaks up, right? That's dad talking, but now Shechem himself speaks up, the guy who actually committed the act. Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give. Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give as ye shall say unto me, but give me the damsel to wife. And so we see here that even though this young man has committed a major sin, this does not make him a horrible person or a rapist or an axe murderer or a reprobate or something. He's a worldly guy. He committed sin. He did wrong, but he's not just the worst person ever because at least he does want to make things right, and he does seem to have some honor here, and in fact the narrator is going to actually tell us that. And that's why it's so stupid to translate that as, oh, he raped her. This is the nicest rapist ever. He's just talking so kindly to her, and in the Bible, the narrator is going to say how he's more honorable. The Bible doesn't praise rapists. It's absurd. And again, these modern versions are trash for about a thousand other reasons. They're constantly tampering with key doctrines about the Trinity, about salvation. I mean, you just have all kinds of stupid stuff. They just ruin the stories even of the Old Testament, and this is an example of that. And so as we continue to go through this passage, it says that they answered the sons of Jacob, verse 13, and Hamor, excuse me, the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor, his father, deceitfully and said, because he had defiled Dinah, their sister, and they said unto him, we cannot do this thing to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised for that were a reproach unto us. That's an old way of saying that would be a reproach unto us. But in this will we consent unto you if ye will be as we are, that every male of you be circumcised, then will we give our daughter unto you and we will take your daughters to us and we will dwell with you and we'll become one people. They're not being sincere here. They don't plan on actually following through with this. They're lying. They're being deceitful. They're trying to set these guys up for destruction. It says in verse 17, but if you will not hearken unto us to be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and we will be gone. And their words pleased Hamor and Shechem Hamor said, great, hey, we're just glad that you're agreeing to this under any circumstances. And the young man deferred not to do the thing. The young man deferred not to do the thing because he had delight in Jacob's daughter. And here's what the narrator is saying. The Holy Ghost inspired narrator that always tells the truth, the omniscient narrator, we would say, and this time we would really mean it because we're talking about the Bible and he was more honorable than all the house of his father. This is not a horrible guy. He's just a guy who committed a big sin because worldly people, unsaved people, people who are non-Christians, they don't necessarily have the same values that we as God's people have. And this is why you should not date an unsaved person. But it says Hamor and Shechem, his son, came unto the gate of their city and then they begin to talk, we already read it before the service, but they talk everybody in the town into this deal and say, hey, look, we're all going to become circumcised because then we can sort of merge with the Hebrews and we can take their daughters for our sons, we can give our daughters them, and these people are very wealthy. Their wealth is going to be ours. This is going to be great. This is going to boost the economy. And so these guys all agree with it. Second half of verse 24, every male was circumcised, all that went out of the gate of his city. This guy's a great salesman if he got them to do that. So he got the men of this town to be circumcised because that's the stipulation. Verse 25, it came to pass on the third day when they were sore. So they're waiting until a strategic time when these guys have been circumcised and on a day when it kind of hurts the most, or they're going to be laid up the most, when they were sore that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword and came upon the city boldly and slew all the males. And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem's house and went out. So not only do they kill this guy and his dad, but they kill all the men of the whole town. They just kill all the men in the city. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and spoiled the city because they had defiled their sister. So the two guys who commit the murder are Simeon and Levi. And then it's probable that when it says the sons of Jacob in verse 27, this could even be other sons of Jacob coming and helping with taking away the loot. They took their sheep and their oxen and their asses and that which was in the city and that which was in the field. And all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives took they captive and spoiled everyone or spoiled even all that was in the house. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you've troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land. He's saying, look, you know, there's going to be retribution here. There's going to be consequences. People are going to come after us and bring us to justice for what you've done. The Canaanites, the Parisites are going to avenge this, he's saying. And I being few in number, they should gather themselves together against me and slay me and I should be destroyed. I and my house. And they said, well, should he deal with our sister as with a harlot? But here's the thing. No, he should not deal with your sister as a harlot. Such a thing ought not to be done. But what we see here is an overreaction. Now how do we know that God was displeased with this? Because when you're reading Old Testament stories, sometimes you don't really get a clear take from the narrator about whether what someone does is right or wrong. And you have to use other scripture to kind of figure out, was this right? Was this wrong? Well, the nice thing with this story is that, you know, we actually do have a clear statement about whether this was right or wrong. Because if you would go to Genesis chapter 49, it's a few pages to the right in your Bible, Genesis chapter 49. And in Genesis chapter 49, we have the final words, the blessings, the prophecies of Jacob. And he gives these blessings. And this is obviously a spirit-filled prophecy that he's giving about the futures of his 12 sons. And so as he's giving these statements that are supposed to be blessings, some of the children end up getting some negative things, some actual cursings. And Simeon and Levi are in that group. It says in verse number 5 of Genesis 49, it says, Simeon and Levi are brethren, instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. Okay, this is not a good thing, right? Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. Oh my soul, come not thou into their secret, unto their assembly mine honor, be not thou united. Do not be like these people. Do not associate with, you know, this is wrong what they did, for in their anger, they slew a man. In their anger, they slew a man. And in their self-will, they dig down a wall. Now let's stop and think about this. Obviously right on the surface, we can see that God is not pleased. The man of God is prophesying and is not looking good for Simeon and Levi. That's obvious right on the surface. But if we slow down and actually look a little more closely at the text here, we see that the thing that they are being condemned for, because remember they killed the whole town. You could just say, well, they went overboard because they killed the whole town. But is that what the text says? No what the Bible says is, in their anger, they slew a man. Even killing Shechem himself was wrong. Even a man, that one man, that they were going to kill the most, I mean look, who's the guy they want to kill the most? They want to kill Shechem the most. They slew a man and God is saying that that was not righteous, that was not just for them to murder Shechem. Although he had committed a terrible sin of fornication, killing him was not appropriate. In their anger, they slew a man. Talking about Shechem, the actual perpetrator, you say why is there no mention of the killing of the rest of the town? Actually there is and this is metaphorically stated as in their self will they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, and I'll explain that in a moment. Cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their wrath for it was cruel, I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. So cursed be their anger, cursed be their wrath, in their anger they slew a man. Talking about killing Shechem, letting us know clearly that it's not just the fact that they killed the whole town that was wrong but even killing Shechem was wrong all by itself. And then we have this kind of strange statement that's kind of difficult to understand. In their self will they digged down a wall. What does that mean to dig down a wall? You know this has to do with basically breaking down a wall from the bottom, right? So you dig under it to destroy the foundation of the wall and you compromise the wall, you weaken the wall so that it could then be knocked down or a breach in the wall could be made, right? Because they digged, so that's going at the bottom of something, down a wall. So they're bringing the wall down through digging at the bottom of it. That's what this is saying. Now it's extremely unlikely that the city that these men dwelled in was actually a walled city literally because of the fact that, you know, it doesn't seem to have been a huge amount of people. It seems to have been just a small enough group of people where two guys could go in and take them out and where you could convince the whole group to get circumcised so that one guy could get married. You know, we're not talking about a metropolis here, okay? We're talking about, you know, a small city. We wouldn't even call it a city in our modern vernacular. We'd call it more like a town or something, you know, a village, whatever. And so the chance of this having some major wall that they literally dig down is unlikely, especially since the story doesn't bring anything like that into the text. It just says that they boldly came upon the city and they killed all the men and then they went after the guy they really wanted and they killed Shechem and they killed Hamor. And so what this is probably referring to is that the wall is a metaphor for the defense. And you'll see this a lot in literature where sometimes a warrior or a fighter will be called a wall, you know, like famously in the Iliad and the Odyssey, there's a guy named Ajax who keeps being called over and over again, the wall of the Achaeans, you know, and there are lots of examples of this where you have, you know, people being considered as the wall, the hedge. Even God says what, you know, I sought for a man to make up the hedge and stand in the gap, right? Sort of a human wall or a human shield. So probably what this is referring to is poetic language digging down the wall. Basically these guys are weakened by being convinced to be circumcised. And then basically the defenses come down because of the fact that they were weakened, they were undercutting their defenses, not literally undercutting, but metaphorically undercutting by getting them to be circumcised. And then once the wall is gone, then now they can just march in and kill and take all the spoil. And again, the wall here probably not being a literal wall, probably being a human wall, just talking about the men of the city who are the defense of the city because obviously poetic language in the Bible is often going to use metaphor. Now what's interesting is that a lot of other Bible versions are going to say something different here. They're going to say something along the lines of instead of they dig down a wall, they're going to say they hamstrung the oxen or they hocked the oxen. Now here's the thing, admittedly the Hebrew word that's in question here for ox and wall is spelled exactly the same in Hebrew, but it's pronounced differently. But the Hebrew consonants are identical for ox and for wall, but it's pronounced differently. It's two different words, but they're spelled the same, right? We have words like that in English where they're spelled the same, but they're pronounced differently. They mean different things. And so here's the thing, you know, who's right? You know, of course we believe that the King James Bible is right. That's our final authority. But even if we just stop and think, we've got these two options that are out there, okay? These other versions saying, well, they hocked the oxen. Well, one of them makes no sense with the actual story and the other one makes loads of sense and that helps us understand why did the King James translators choose the correct option because the correct option makes sense. I just explained to you how it makes sense, the digging down a wall interpretation. Now let's think about the hamstringing of oxen or hawking of oxen. Now oxen are part of the spoil that Simeon and Levi end up taking away because remember, what does Simeon and Levi do after they kill everybody? They take the women and the children and they take the oxen. It specifically says they take the animals with them as a spoil. What does it mean to hawk oxen or to hamstring oxen? When it talks about hawking the horses elsewhere in the Bible, what is that referring to? It's talking about cutting their basically, you know, the equivalent of humans having an Achilles tendon. It's cutting that part of the animal so that now the animal can't walk and it's crippled and it's useless. It's something that people would typically do to horses. You know in the Bible we read about them hawking horses. Why are they hawking the horses? They don't want them to be able to use those horses in battle so they cripple them so that they're now worthless because they've cut their Achilles tendon and so forth. Well here's the thing, why in the world would Simeon and Levi cut the Achilles tendon on cows that are not going to stop them from doing what they want to do in that town, number one, because they just boldly come into town and just kill everybody. It's just not so like, you're going to have to go through us first. And here's the thing, if you're going to take the oxen as a spoil, why would you damage your own stuff? If you're taking the oxen with you, you don't want to damage your own stuff. You want to take that stuff with you and you want it to be intact. And so once again the scholars that gave us the King James Bible get it right and modern versions end up getting it wrong. And so anyway, I don't want to go into a big thing on that, but that's what's going on here. I really want to drive in the fact though that even killing the one person as retribution for the fornication is considered overboard. It's unrighteous, it's a wrong kind of anger and wrath and so forth. So now that we know that, let's see if we can get some applications here. Flip over to Exodus chapter 22 as we further delve into this subject. Exodus chapter 22, because remember, God's right. You can sit there and say, well, yeah, I love that story. And you know, some of us maybe at another time in our life might have read that story and just thought like, yeah, get them, yeah. And we just kind of like, you know, Rambo and Chuck Norris, you know, just going in there and just killing everybody and whatever. But at the end of the day, that's an immature view and it's not biblical. You know? So you say, well, that's how I've always read it. Okay, well, you've been reading it wrong. Time to read it the right way, according to Genesis chapter 49. Look at Exodus chapter number 22 and let's see what should have happened. According to the Bible, it says in verse 16, if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, Exodus 22, 16, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refused to give her under him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins. So the criminal punishment here that's appropriate is that he has to marry the girl, okay? And if the father refuses to give her, if the father says, no, I don't want her to marry this guy, he has to be willing to marry her. But if dad says, no, I don't even want her to marry this guy, or maybe she doesn't even want to marry the guy. Well, then at that point, then he just has to pay a monetary fine. Now, look, here's what you have to understand is that we have to differentiate between things in the Bible that are sin and things that are a crime. We need to differentiate between divine justice and criminal justice. Now look, if I so much as think a bad thought, that's a sin, but should the government punish me for thinking a bad thought? Thought crime? Absolutely not, right? I mean, look, you could do something, you know, telling a lie, lying to someone is a sin. You might face some divine justice for that. God's going to punish for that. But wait a minute. Is that a crime? Is that against the law? Are you going to be punished? Look, you might go out here and commit a big sin in the eyes of God and get some tiny punishment from the police. Even though you committed a huge sin in God's sight, they just give you a little slap on the wrist because criminally it's not a big deal. These are two different things, my friend. And look, there are certain things you do where you only end up facing justice from God, not from the police because the police don't care. Other things you could do, the police are going to punish you and God's like, doesn't care because it wasn't about his law, it was just some manmade ordinance or whatever. But most of the time, these things are probably going to overlap when you're out committing crimes and usually you're offending God and man, and you could be subject to both. So it's not like, oh, I just got this little punishment from the police, ha, I got away with it. Wrong, because God can mess you up, my friend, and do much worse unto you. I mean, think about it. There are people today in America that go out and commit horrible crimes, kidnapping, rape, and then they're out in a couple of years or something. Does that mean that God's finished punishing them? No. There's a criminal code and there's divine retribution. Now when it comes to the criminal code in the Bible, we know that that criminal code is just. Our American criminal code sometimes is just, sometimes it isn't, to varying degrees. But when it comes to the Bible's justice, when it comes to criminal justice in the Bible, we know the Bible's always right, the law of God is perfect. And so when we see this punishment here that says, well, he has to marry the girl, you know, you can sit there and say, well, that's not enough of a punishment. He wants to marry her anyway. Here's the thing about that, though, is that that doesn't mean that there aren't other consequences for this guy. He's just saying that's what you do legally. Now look, if someone fornicates today, in America, there's no legal punishment typically. But yet, God is still going to judge, okay? If you go out and commit fornication, God is going to punish you for that. If you're a saved Christian and you know what the word of God says and you go out and live that kind of a lifestyle, God is going to punish you. You're going to suffer consequences. It's also, by the way, going to harm your future marriage and the future marriage of the people that you fornicate with, okay? And so these other repercussions are still there, but at the end of the day, when it comes to God's law, this is the criminal punishment. You either have to marry the girl or pay a fine. You say it's not enough. You're wrong. You're wrong. It is enough from a criminal standpoint. It is enough. Well, I think that he should be killed. I think somebody should beat the living whatever out of him. Really? Because that's not in the text. So who am I going to believe? You or God? At the end of the day, the Bible is the final authority. And again, not saying you go out and commit fornication and, oh, as long as you marry the girl, you're fine. Wrong. Because God still looks at that as a heinous sin. God is still going to punish spiritually for what you've broken spiritually. And not only that, you're going to have problems in your marriage and you're going to deal with the consequence of that for the rest of your life. You could even get STDs and lots of other things can happen. And by the way, just because God's law says that this is the punishment, does that mean that this is what you're going to get? No, because guess what? These guys, Shechem, Hamor, the town, they all got killed. So Shechem went out and fornicated, he got a little more punishment than he bargained for, didn't he? Were Simeon and Levi right with what they did? No. But did it happen though? It still happened though. And so therefore, be careful because guess what? You go out and commit fornication, someone might beat the fire out of you. Somebody might kill you. Somebody might do all these horrible things to you, even if it's not biblical. Guess what? These horrible things happen every minute of every day in our world because this is the world we're living in. So this Dinah story really does two things. Number one, it warns the fathers and the brothers from going overboard and shows them, look, this is too much. This is not acceptable. And of course, that's backed up in Exodus. But then another thing it warns is, hey, you better be careful just going out and sleeping with this girl and that girl because some father and brother might go berserk on you or whatever, even though it's wrong, it could still happen. And so therefore, you got to watch out. You got to be careful. Bad things happen to you when you go out and commit horrible sins. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 22. Deuteronomy chapter number 22, we're going to look at a parallel passage because Deuteronomy is literally the second giving of the law. And so a lot of the same things are brought up in a different light, worded differently, extra details and so forth. And so when we go to Deuteronomy chapter 22, of course, it's just a coincidence these are both chapter 22. But Deuteronomy 22 happens to be a parallel passage of Exodus 22. And it says in verse number 22, if a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die. Both the man that lay with the woman and the woman. So shall thou put away evil from Israel. So we see that when it comes to fornication, talking about unmarried people sleeping together before they're married. That was the punishment that said he has to endow her to be his wife or he has to pay a fine. Okay. But when it comes to a married woman, well, this is a different story, isn't it? If the woman's married, now it's not fornication. It's what? It's adultery. And what is the death penalty for adultery? It's or sorry, what's the pun? I gave you the answer. What's the punishment for adultery is death. Adultery is a more serious crime and it is punishable by death. Now if this guy had lay with Jacob's wife or something, you know, or had lay with Simeon's wife or something, well then, you know, he would have deserved to be put to death at that point because that is a different crime. That's adultery as opposed to fornication. Now look at verse 23. Let's get into the more relevant situation. If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto a husband and a man find her in the city and lie with her, then ye shall bring both out unto the gate of that city and ye shall stone them with stones that they die. The damsel because she cried not being in the city and the man because he had humbled his neighbor's wife, so shall thou put away evil from among you. But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field and the man force her and lie with her, then the man only that lay with her shall die, but unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing. There is in the damsel no sin worthy of death, for as when a man rises against his neighbor and slayeth them, even so is this matter. For he found her in the field and the betrothed damsel cried and there was none to save her. So here's what's going on. We see that if a woman is betrothed, espoused, she's going to be married to a man, she already belongs to someone else, you know, obviously if they're already married, this goes as well, but we already covered that in the previous verse. If a man lies with her in the city, they both get put to death, why? Because she can't just say, oh, he forced me. It's like, wait a minute, why didn't you yell and scream and kick and fight? You know, you're in the city, what's going on? You went along with this. And so she's put to death as well, even if she claims later, oh no, I didn't want to do that. But if it's out in the field, then the assumption is, well, she screamed and cried, but nobody heard her because they were out in the middle of nowhere. And by the way, it's a good reason not to be out in the middle of nowhere with dudes. And so let's keep going here. It says, where did we leave off? Verse number 28. If a man find a damsel that's a virgin, which is not betrothed, and this is the same thing that we saw in Exodus, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found, then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he hath humbled her. He may not put her away all his days. And again, the modern versions just absolutely butcher this with their stupidity and have women marrying their rapist, which again, is absurd, it's the same stupid mistake that they make in Genesis 34, they make the same stupid mistake in Deuteronomy 22, and atheists will bring this up all the time. Well, the Bible says you have to marry your rapist. First of all, the Bible is not saying that the girl has to do anything. Saying the guy has to marry her, number one. Number two, it's not rape. Well, he laid hands on her and lie with her. Well, you know what? Try laying with your wife without laying hands on her. You know, I like to see how that works. You know, when you lie with your wife, you end up putting your hands on her. That's just kind of the way it works, but I'll spare you. But again, it's just a stupid way to interpret the Bible, and what it comes down to a lot of times is just people coming up with cute new translations and cute new interpretations, because in order to copyright their new Bible, it has to be different than any other Bible that's already on the market. So they end up just changing things for the sake of changing things, and all these textual critics and scholars, they don't make a name for themselves by saying, hey, I'm going to write a paper about how the traditional text is right. No, it's their like exotic new interpretation that puts them on the map as a scholar, their new discovery, you know, their new esoteric knowledge. And so, you know, these modern versions, they can't be trusted here or anywhere else. Get a King James, the tried and the true. That is what we have in our language, the word of God. It's correct. Don't be fooled into thinking that these new versions say the same thing, because they don't. And that's another sermon, of course. But the idea here is, and here's the main point that I want to draw from this, is that girls and women need to be taught to stand up for themselves and to say no. The Bible is clearly expecting girls and women to stand up for themselves, okay? And that means that you, young lady, you little Dinah out there, you can't just say, oh, I got pressured into this, I just couldn't say no, I was embarrassed to say no, or I tried to say no and the words just didn't come out, or whatever. That's not going to work. If you're going to be out there in this world, you better learn how to stand up for yourself and how to say no. And look, even if a guy so much as asks you out on a date and you don't want to go, say no. Preach it. Hey, you want to go out with me? No, I don't. I don't want to go out with you. And look, I don't think you should be a jerk about it, I don't think you should be rude, and you shouldn't go around like, oh, can you believe this guy asked me on a date? How dare he? Look, if a guy asks you out on a date, take it to the compliment. You know, on one hand you have girls crying about it and nobody's asking them on a date, and then the wrong guy asks them on a date and is like, can you believe this guy, and make fun of the guy and ruin the guy's confidence. Look, we want guys to have the confidence to be able to go up to these girls and ask them for a date and not punish them where it's like, you know, it's either going to be really good or really bad. No, my friend, it's just, you ask a question, you get a yes or a no, you can be polite, you can be civil, you can be friendly about it. But women are expected to stand up for themselves, okay? And if you're on a date with a guy or if you're in a situation with a guy and he starts touching you or getting inappropriate with you in any way, you know what, you need to learn to stand up for yourself and say no. Don't do that. We're not going to do that. Get away from me. You know what? And you even sometimes it would be appropriate to slap him across the face or, you know, make things real clear. Not just like, no, stop. No, my friend, you've got to make it super clear. And you know, we don't want the girls in our church, the girls that we're raising and our families to basically grow up and not know how to stand up for themselves or say no because then, you know, eventually they could be victimized. Now look, obviously, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying every victim didn't stand up for themselves because the Bible's describing a situation in this passage of someone who did stand up for themselves and is still victimized. But you're going to be even more likely to be victimized if you don't stand up for yourself, if you don't say no, if you don't make things crystal clear, and if you don't scream and yell, kick, punch, bite, whatever you need to do to defend yourself. That's what the Bible teaches. Now look, if you have, and I'm sure in a crowd this size, there are many that have been molested, violated, even raped throughout their lifetime, and that's terrible, and you know what? The Bible says it's not your fault because the Bible flat out says that this is like when a man rises up and kills another man, we're not going to blame the victim who got murdered, right? It's the same thing. It's a one-way deal. Someone violates you against your will, then that's on them. They're the one who did wrong and you're just a victim. So we're not here to blame the victim or anything like that, but at the same time, we want to raise our daughters and teach our girls to stand up for themselves and to fight back and to say no and not to just go along with whatever because they're too shy or embarrassed or freeze up like a deer in the headlights. No, you need to do what you need to do to get out of that situation. That's just the world that we live in. You say, well, you know, that's not fair. Life isn't fair. The world's not fair, but it's the world that we live in. It's the way that it is. And so that was the biblical text I want to go over and now, and we looked at a lot of Bible, my friend, you know, don't, don't even say that I'm not preaching the Bible here because we literally just went through approximately 45 to 50 verses just now besides verses that I quoted. That's just what we read together. Okay. So there's a lot of scripture that we went over, but now let's go over some actual practical applications of this. Okay. So we're talking about overprotective fathers and brothers. Okay. First of all, protection's good. It's good to be protective. We want to obviously guard our young people. And when you see Dinah going out by herself as a, as a young girl and she's defenseless, not only just physically, but even emotionally, she's too young to be smart enough to not get sucked in by this guy or whatever. Okay. And obviously it would have been better if somebody's with her, if our whereabouts are more under control so that she's not just out there doing whatever. You know, dad and brothers weren't around and she's just out there doing whatever. And then afterward they're super mad about it, but it's like, well, you know, obviously we should be protective and reasonable supervision is good. We're not trying to be like the Muslims or something and lock them up and, and, and dress them like a Ninja and all that, but you know, a reasonable amount of supervision is good. We do want to supervise. We do want to accompany and chaperone and make sure that they're in public places where things aren't going to go wrong. Uh, you know, uh, girls need to be taught to say no, both to dates that they don't want to go on and to, uh, you know, a guy, uh, you know, basically, you know, getting all physical and touching them and whatever, you know, they have to be able to stand up for themselves with that. Okay. Now, here's the thing about that. You know, in the church auditorium, you know, fornication isn't going to happen in the church auditorium. It just isn't, you know, do you really think that your daughter's in danger of, uh, committing fornication after a church service because a guy comes over and talks to her. We're in a crowd of people here. Folks, we got 300 people here. You know, it's, this is a place where we're all in public. Everybody's in plain view. Nobody's getting defiled in this auditorium. Now, obviously somebody could come here at a weird time and do something wicked, but I'm saying, you know, I'm talking about when we're at church and everybody's here, right? And then you've got people just freaking out sometimes because, oh, this guy came over and talked about, look, if your daughter doesn't want to talk to that guy, you need to teach your daughter to tell that guy no and just say, hey, I'm not really interested in talking to you and I'm not trying to come up with the smoothest responses. Maybe you'll come up with a smoother one, but just, you know, dream on buddy, whatever. But the point is, look, if a guy comes up and talks to you young ladies, you know, you can always just politely extricate yourself from that conversation. You don't have to just hang out with the guy for the next 20 minutes. You can just come up with an excuse and bow out of that conversation. And you know what? If, if you're a parent and your daughter's having a conversation that you don't want her to have, then you can walk over there and just politely, whatever, get involved and just, just politely, friendly, extricate your daughter from that conversation. But you know what? There's no reason to get violent. There's no reason to blow your top and get angry and you say, well, pastor, you said anger was legitimate. You know, if, if, if somebody fornicates with my daughter, you said anger is legitimate. Well this guy hypothetically talked about kissing my daughter. Okay, what if I told you that hypothetically talking about kissing someone is not fornication? You idiot. What is wrong with you? Well we got these over the top, crazy, super overprotective bozos where it's like, you talked about, you talked about kissing my daughter. What is wrong with you? That's not fornication. Actually kissing your daughter isn't fornication. Holding hands with your daughter isn't fornication. But how much less is talking about holding your hand, holding hands with your daughter without actually doing it? You know, you know, I want to hold your, it's like, what in the world? Talking, hand holding and kissing isn't fornication, folks. And talking about those things really isn't fornication. Violence is not acceptable. Okay, now look, dads do have veto power. I do believe, I think that's a biblical concept that dads do have veto power because we saw a couple scriptures just now where the father utterly refuses to give his daughter to this man. But you know what? At the same time, dads should not abuse that veto power. You know, I shouldn't just be like, well I want him to marry this guy so I'm just going to veto everyone else. That's not veto. That's you picking who your daughter is going to marry and you need to let your daughter make that decision for herself. Especially within parameters that she needs to marry a godly Christian young man. But at the same time though, using your veto power to just veto people for no good reason, just vetoing people because you don't like their face isn't a right use of that. And if a dad doesn't approve of a guy dating his daughter or marrying his daughter, whatever, then he should tell him no. But you know what? He should do it nicely. There's no reason to treat people unkindly, to be rude, to get angry. Can you believe that this guy thought that he was good enough for my daughter? Look, just tell the guy to dream on and go on with your life. And look, I'm not just preaching about this stuff hypothetically folks. I've been a pastor for a long time. I've seen many situations like this and it's just wrong. And you know what? There's a culture in place where basically someone can talk about hypothetically kissing a girl and then get violently assaulted for it and people think that that's okay. You know what? Something's wrong with that culture. It's absurd. It's madness. But what it is, is it's like this arms race of who can be the biggest chess pounder, who can be the most protective dad, who can have the most radical rules for their kids and whatever and it's garbage. Now let me preach against something. I've been wanting to preach about this for years. And finally the sermon is here. The stupidest shirt on the planet that I'm sick of seeing and if you own this shirt, burn it. The rules for dating my daughter t-shirt. Who knows what I'm talking about? Put up your hand if you know what I'm talking about. And there are various permutations of this shirt along the lines of rules for dating my daughter. Number one, don't. Rules for dating my daughter, I don't mind going back to prison or I don't like you or I'll never like you or this stupid stuff. Ha ha ha ha. Hardy ha ha. It's stupid. First of all, it's an embarrassment to your daughter. I'm sure your daughter loves you wearing that shirt, you big overgrown junior high baboon. But at the end of the day, there's nothing cool about that. There's nothing biblical about that. Just threatening to murder everyone. Hey, I'm going to murder you and I'm going to beat you up and you're ugly and I farted. That's stupid you junior high idiot. But look, I looked this up online because I've seen this stupid shirt and I'm always just like, man, that's so dumb. Just grow up. But you know, I'm looking at these shirts online because I, you know, as I was preparing this sermon and there was this one, because this is always the statement that has always made me the maddest about this shirt and that always offended me the most. And I looked up just so many different versions of this shirt and just so many of them had this point. Like just example after example, different designs that had this statement on them. Whatever you do to her, I will do to you. And you know what? If you like this shirt, guys, I have an idea for another shirt you could wear. How about a shirt that says I'm a faggot? Why don't you wear that? You know what I mean? What's your size, bro? Because if you think that shirt is so cool, I can get you a shirt that says I'm a flaming faggot because you know what, what is this? Whatever you do to her, I'll do to you. What kind of faggoty sodomite crap is that? That's gross. Look, I don't want anybody getting inappropriate with my daughter, but I'm not getting inappropriate with them if they do because I'm not a fag. But it's just bizarre to me how just this shirt is just being sold in so many stores and so many places. You know, whatever you do to her, oh, that's funny. Ha ha ha. No, it's not funny. It's gross. And you're a pervert. Burn your stupid shirt. It's not biblical. It isn't right. Go if you would to First Samuel. Oh, I forgot to write down the chapter. It's verses 24 through 33 somewhere in First Samuel. I want to say this is going to be like somewhere in the neighborhood of like chapter 14. Let's see how, uh, see how well I know my stuff here. All right, let's see here. First Samuel 14. Come on. Big bucks. No whammy. Yep. Got it. All right. Very good. So we'll come back to that in a moment. But anyway, you know, this kind of arrogant, prideful, grandstanding, you know, I think it ceases to be about their daughter as much as just about their big ego, you know, and just looking for excuses to get violent, looking for excuses to be a big mouth, looking for excuses to be a big shot. And again, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to go too radical in either direction here. Obviously I have rules for my daughters. On the one hand, we don't want to just let our daughters go out and do whatever, but at the same time we don't want to go overboard and go crazy where we're not allowing them to do anything. And then when just a boy just gets the slightest bit out of line, we're just going to beat the crap out of him or whatever, or threatened to beat the crap out of him or whatever. That's garbage. It's wrong. And you might think it's cool or manly or, you know, whatever. What does the Bible say? Is it biblical? No, it isn't. Now here's the thing. You know, you don't want to go too radical in either direction. Again, I'm not up here saying, let your daughter just go out and see the daughter of the land and just be out there by herself doing whatever, unsupervised, unshappered. That's not what I'm saying either, okay? But I'm dealing with the opposite problem of people getting too overboard, too wound up about these things, and they need to chill out, okay? And look, there have been times when someone said something inappropriate to my daughter and I dealt with that person, and look, I didn't deal with them out back or something. And you know what? It's no one you know, so don't worry about it. But the point is, you know, well, no one will ever find the body. No, I didn't hurt anybody. Why would I? Because you know what? Look, whenever somebody said something inappropriate to my daughter, you know, I basically just said, well, you know, I don't want you around that guy anymore. You know, this guy, he's crossed the line. You know, I don't think that you should be friends with this guy. I don't think, you know, he's inappropriate or whatever. And my daughter agreed with me. And guess what? I never one time said, you know, what I'd like to do to that guy. You know, this is what I even said. I said, you know, I hope he learns his lesson from this situation and realizes what he did wrong so that he won't make this mistake in the future so that he can go on to live a godly Christian life and not screw up future possible, you know, love interests in his life by saying something weird, saying something, you know, that was But, but look, you see how you can still be kind and love people and still enforce rules and still have some protection without over protection and without going over the top. See, it's sort of like a guitar string. Okay. Those of you who played guitar or other stringed instruments, you know, if, if the guitar string is too loose, well then it's like, you know, and it doesn't sound good. It doesn't make a clear, crisp sound. You know, it's just like, okay. You know, it's, it's, it's not effective. It's worthless. Right. But then at the same time, if you make it too tight, what happens? You make it just a little too tight and it snaps. Okay. So we don't want the string to snap and we also don't want it to be just all limp and relax and just, okay, honey, here's the keys. Go do whatever. See you tomorrow. That's stupid. Okay. Obviously we don't want to just have no rules and no standards and no decency and just letting them just be out there and just, just with guy after guy, just groping them and obviously we don't want that. But at the same time, we don't want to go overboard in the other direction either. Locking up our daughters like Rapunzel in a tower or something. And forgive me if that's the wrong illusion cause I don't really know that story. Something about her. She gets a haircut eventually, but I don't. That's all I know. Literally. I missed, you know, I don't remember how that one goes, but I just, I think she was locked up in a tower or something anyway. So here's an example. You say, well, I don't agree with your guitar string illustration. Well, let me show you an example of this in the Bible. Okay. Look at first Samuel 14 verse 24 it says the men of Israel were distressed that day for Saul had adjourned the people saying, cursed be the man that eateth any food until evening that I may be avenged on my enemies. So none of the people tasted any food and all they have, the land came to a wood and there was honey upon the ground. So notice the people are troubled because the Israelites are marching, they're fighting, they're exerting themselves in a great way. They're not just, Oh, we're at home today. So we're fasting and, and you know, praying to the Lord. No, these people are out doing physical exertion outside and Saul makes this kind of unreasonable, over the top, strict prohibition that doesn't really make sense saying, well, cursed is anyone who eats anything today and he has them all fasting. You can't eat any food till evening and they're out there and it's, it's really strict and look, are the people obeying this? Yeah. It says none of the people tasted any food. So people are obeying the rule even though it's overboard. And you know what they should, cause obviously Saul is the Lord's anointed, he's the boss, he has a rule, he made the rule, and obviously the people are supposed to obey their leader even if he's being too strict or being a little unreasonable, whatever, you know what they got to do, what they're being told to do. They shouldn't be just disregarding what the Lord's anointed is telling them to do. None of the people taste any food. They come to the place where there's honey on the ground and when the people were coming to the wood, behold, the honey dropped verse 26, but no man put his hand to his mouth for the people feared the oath, but Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with the oath, wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand and dipped it in a honeycomb and put his hand to his mouth and his eyes were enlightened. Because here's the thing, when you get dehydrated, when you haven't been eating or drinking and you're exerting yourself, your vision becomes blurred. You know, this happens to me a lot in the summertime. I'll be preaching on a Sunday night or Wednesday night and my vision will get blurred or like when I've run ultra marathons, you know, your vision will start getting blurry when you're not getting adequate nutrition coming in. And so he gets the honey in his mouth and his eyes are enlightened. You know, it has a positive physical effect on his body. Then answered one of the people and said, thy father straightly charged the people with an oath saying, cursed be the man that eateth any food this day. And the people are faint, like they're starving, they're low blood sugar, whatever. But now this guy's telling Jonathan, like, what are you doing? Your father. But this is the first time Jonathan's hearing about it. Jonathan's never heard of this rule, right? Everybody following the story? Then said Jonathan and Jonathan shouldn't have said this, but he's obviously angry because he just accidentally broke this rule that he didn't even know about. So he says, my father troubled the people or sorry, my father troubled the land. See, I pray you how mine eyes have been enlightened because I tasted a little of this honey. How much more if happily the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies, which they found for had there not been now a much greater slaughter among the Philistines. He's saying, man, you know, this was a dumb idea. We should have been able to eat and drink and whatever so that we could be fighting our best. We would have killed even more Philistines if we would have done that. And they smote the Philistines that day from Micmash to Ijalon and the people were very faint and the people watch this verse 32 people flew upon the spoil and took sheep and oxen and calves and slew them on the ground. Watch this. The people did eat them with the blood, with the blood. Now, now stop and think about this story. Let me help you to understand where I'm going with this. Okay. The leader makes a rule. That's not anything that God prescribed. It's not anything biblical. It's just a really strict over the top rule. Okay. People are obeying it and the people obey it and everything's great until someone comes along and says, Hey, what in the world? This rule doesn't make any sense. Now I'm not saying Jonathan should have said that, but that's what he said. This rule makes no sense. What are we doing here? Why did he even make this rule in the first place? It would have been better if he had not made this rule. What is the people's reaction to that? Because they respect Jonathan. They hear Jonathan say this. They now, instead of just eating a little honey, instead of just eating a little food like a normal person, they end up eating just raw meat with blood in it, which is actually against the law of God. God's law said don't eat any blood and they're eating with the blood. So how did these people go from super strict adherence? I'm not even going to touch this honey to now just, you know, just like that, just in mind of a monster, eating a, eating a bunch of bloody meat, eating blood when God said no to eating blood because they are too wound tight, they're wound too tight. You see, if it would have been a reasonable rule in the first place, then when somebody came along and said, this rule doesn't make any sense, they would have gone like, yeah, it actually does make sense. Actually, it's in the Bible. Actually, here's what the Bible says. Actually, it's reasonable. Actually, I can see where the pastor's coming from. Actually, I can see where dad's coming from. And you know what? Here's the thing. The stuff that I preach, it is based on the Bible and it is reasonable. And hopefully the parents in this room, they do have reasonable expectations for their children's that they're not being too lenient. They're not being too strict, but they're seeking what the word of God says, wisdom from life, common sense, and coming up with a parameter and a framework that people can actually realistically live with that's going to keep them far from committing fornication, but it's also not going to keep them locked up and unable to actually date and meet someone and get married because like I preached last Sunday night, you know, I want my kids to get married and we don't want to make that hard for them. We want to make that easy for them. You know, we want to make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing. And so we see this story illustrates the principle of, you know, getting people wound up too tight. And here's what I've seen. Cause I look, I've seen some things. My friend, I have grown up in a Christian home. I've been saved since I was six years old. I've been in church since I was born. And I've, I've gone to church every week unless I was sick or something. And I've usually been three to thrive for like the vast majority of my life. I went to church three times a week. I've been in Christian schools. I've been in public schools. I've been a pastor for 18 and a half years. And so I'm constantly dealing with people and dealing with their situations. Here's what I've observed. Here's something that I've observed in my life. I've seen that when you have these really over the top strict standards, that there are basically two kinds of young people, you have the kinds of young people that just say right away, like that doesn't make any sense. That's not biblical. I'm not going to do it because it's just doesn't make sense. And you know, and these are seen as rebellious kids because they're not obeying authority. Okay. And obviously, let me be clear, obviously as children, if your parents have a rule and you're a child, you're supposed to obey your father and mother. That's what the Bible commands you to do. It's no question about that. The people were right to do that, but I've noticed that there's the one type of child that just says from the get go, from the jump, they're just saying, no, this rule is overboard. It doesn't make sense. I'm not going to do it. And of course that's not right, but that's what a lot, that's where a lot of Christian young people are at. Just realist. That's just the way it is. Okay. And then there's another type of Christian young person that basically buys into the over the top, super strict rules, hook line and sinker. And they're just, Oh yeah. I mean, they, they believe that it's right and normal, but, but you know what ends up happening to them a lot. Once they turn 18, 19, 20, 21, they snap, they snap, and they're out committing fornication. They're out having bastard children out of wedlock. And you're like, what the, like this person was such a good kid, good teenager, they followed the rules. They were just right there with it. But, but look, it's the exact phenomenon that we see in Samuel 14, because they're wound too tight and eventually they snap as soon as somebody comes along and tells them, and then they, it clicks with them. And then they're just like, Oh man, this is ridiculous. And then they go too far because it would have made a lot more sense. First of all, for these people to say, you know, obviously they should have obeyed, but I'm saying to just say like, Hey man, we can do a little power gel here. We can do a little honey, you know, whatever this is, this, you know, we're faint here. We're out here passing out. What's the deal, you know, but, but what do they do? They, they go all the way eating bloody raw meat. Okay. So, so I don't want my children to go out and just snap. Oh, look at my little picture. Perfect family. Look at my perfect little kids and my perfect little teenagers. And then all of a sudden, yeah, until they're 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, whenever it happens, and then they just snap and then they're just out being a whore monger or a whore. I don't want that. My friend, you see, the thing is it's sort of like the pressure cooker. Who has a pressure cooker at home? What's it? Is it called the insta pot? Is that what that is? Is that a pressure cooker? Okay. Uh, this message has been brought to you in part by insta pot, but you know, we have the insta pot pressure. It's like a, it's like a pressure cooker. You know what? There's a little valve to release a little pressure. Have you ever heard this expression blowing off a little steam? Well, guess what? If you don't let people ever blow off any steam because you're just so strict and there's no fun allowed and we're never going to hang around with other teenagers and we're never going to have fun. We're never going to have a good time. It's just all this super ascetic. We're living like monks over here and we're just, you know, we're just in the cloister all day and it's just militaristic discipline day and night. Well, you know what happens is you're just letting the pressure just build and build and build and then you wonder why these young people just snap and am I making this up because anybody who's been a Christian for a long time has seen the young people snap and they know that I'm telling the truth and it's like, Oh, look at our wonderful young people until they're not. Yeah, they're really, they're real wonderful until they're not, you know, I would rather teach our young people what the Bible says. Teach our young people what the word of God says, not just shut up and follow my rules of tension. You know, I'd rather teach them, help them to understand and obviously teach them that whether or not you understand, you still have to obey authority, but the Bible says this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. We don't want to have grievous commandments and we don't want to provoke our children unto wrath, but want to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We don't want to be too strict where we just tighten that guitar string so much that it snaps or that we just let no pressure out of the insta pot, never a chance to blow off steam and then they just, you know, Oh, you know, my daughter's never allowed to be around boys. She can date when she's 25 or some, some ridiculous absurdity. She's never allowed to talk to boys. She's not allowed to talk to you, but why would I, here's the, okay. Here's a real good idea for you guys. Don't let your daughter talk to any Christian boys at church. Great idea. So now she can only talk to guys out there in the world. Gru brilliant. Good job, Einstein. Don't let your child talk to Christian young people that you allow them to talk to. Well, guess what? They're going to talk to somebody. You can't just expect people to go through life without talking to friends or talking to anyone. So it's like, well, you can't talk to any of these people at church until you're 37. It's like, well, well, here's the thing about that is that then what they're going to do is a lot of them are going to go sneak out and then they're talking to totally the wrong people. Why not let them talk to the right people in a controlled environment? Why not let your kids hang out after church a little bit and talk to some Christian friends at faithful word or at other Christian or at other godly churches than to just have this overboard, overprotective, overly strict so that either, A, they're sneaking off and hanging around with the wrong kind of people when they could be hanging around with the right kind of people that you allow or, number two, they do obey and they follow it to a T and they do exactly what you say until they don't, until they snap and now it's just, you know, just wiping the blood from their filthy mouth. And you're looking at their, you know, you find them on Instagram. It's like, because now they're just a total whore. Now they just look gross. They just look like a cannibal and they just look weird and they're just freaks and they're just saying all these horrific years like what happened? I'm not claiming to have all the answers. I'm not claiming to be right about everything. I'm not claiming that everything I said this morning is exactly right. Obviously, I gave a lot of Bible and I also gave some of my own experiences, my own views and my own opinions. You know, take these words and do with them whatever you will, you know, but I'm up here preaching to you this morning and, you know, you do what you got to do. I'm I'm trying to do the best I can to raise my family. I know you're trying to do the best you can to raise your family. I know I've made parenting mistakes. I'm sure you've made parenting mistakes. We've all made parenting mistakes. I'm not claiming to have all the answers or to be perfect or to be doing everything right. But at the end of the day, I think that what I'm saying is is biblical and sound wisdom. And I've had a lot of experiences with this. And I think that just being in an arms race to see who can get more strict, more radical, it makes for great preaching, you know, wanting up everybody with how wild and radical we can get. But but but is it really effective? Is it really wise? Is it really right? Well, you know what? You be the judge. This part is never word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. And Lord God, please just help our young people. Lord, help the children and teens that are in this auditorium this morning. Lord, help all of them to grow up and to be pure on their wedding day. Help them be virgins on their wedding day, not to go out and commit the folly that ought not to be done known as fornication. Lord. And give us wisdom as parents to guide our children and to have rules for our children. That would keep them from danger, but that would not provoke them under wrath. And in Jesus name we pray. Amen.