(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) Now I have so much to preach here I'm going to jump right into it and whenever I run out of time I'm just going to end this sermon because there's just so much to say and so much that I have here in this sermon but I want to preach tonight on the importance of the family, the importance of the family unit and I'm going to show you some things from the Bible and what I feel like is responsible for the breakdown of the family. Now look at verse number 18 first of all, by way of introduction I'm going to show you just kind of an overview of what God's plan is, God's purpose and God's intention for the family. Look at verse 18, the Bible says, and the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. Now right away, I mean God just created Adam, the first man, and right away he says it's not good for him to just be alone. He needs a family, right, I mean that's the first thing he says and he says it's not good for the man should be alone. Now all throughout Genesis 1, if you remember, reading Genesis 1, you know on the first day God created this and God saw everything that he created and behold, you know, it was good. Remember he keeps saying it was good, it was good and then it gets to the very end of Genesis 1 and God saw all the things that he made and behold it was very good. But then this is the first thing that God says is not good. It's not good for the man that the man should be alone, I will make him and help meet for him. suitable for him, you know, that fits him, that's appropriate for him. He made all the animals, he said this is not what I had in mind, he's saying he needs someone that's suited to him, he needs a companion, he needs a family, and not just a wife, but also children. I mean in Genesis 1, God said to Adam and Eve, you know, because we kind of back up in Genesis 2 and we see an overview of the sixth day, male and female were both created on the sixth day. He jumps back in time in Genesis 2 and explains this, but in Genesis 1, after he created the man and the woman, he told them to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. And so we see here God saying people are not designed to live and to be alone. Look down at verse number 23, and Adam said, this now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called a woman because she was taken out of man, therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. Now we're going to come back to that, but flip over to Ephesians chapter 5, in the New Testament, Ephesians, toward the end of your Bible, Romans, 1 second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians chapter number 5. You see, God's plan is for a man to leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife. Let's talk about that for a minute. A person in a perfect world, you know, of course we don't live in a perfect world, right? But if we were living in a perfect world, you want to know what God's ideal situation is? God's plan is that every person is always living in a family all the time. You say, how? Well because you're born into a family, mom and dad are there, right? Maybe you've got your brothers and sisters? You're born into a family, you're raised in that family, then you leave your father and mother to cleave to your wife, now it's you and her, now you're a family. Then you have children, and you live with that wife till death, you do part, you know, and so on. So really, almost from the cradle to the grave, God has set it up to where you're living in a family environment. And we're going to get more into that later, but that's just what I wanted to show you about Genesis chapter 2, where God says you leave father and mother to go to be with your wife, there you're going from one family to another. You're going from being the child to being the father, or being the mother if you're a woman. But look at Ephesians chapter 5 verse 22, the Bible says, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body, therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Friends, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Now look at the next chapter, chapter 6 verse 1, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right, honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment promised, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth, and ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Now Proverbs 29 15 reads, you don't have to turn there, the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. Did you hear that? If a child is just left to themselves, they're going to bring their mother to shame. Children need a mother and a father raising them. It's not all the father, it's not all the mother, it's both. The Bible says in Proverbs 31, the verse that we're memorizing in that chapter, the prophecy, the words of King Leviel, the prophecy which his mother taught him. So Solomon was taught the Bible by his mother, and here God's telling fathers to train up and bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You see, children should not be allowed to run wild and do whatever they want. They need a father and a mother disappointing them, the Bible says the rod and reproof give wisdom. The rod, what do you think the rod is talking about? Spanking. Spanking them with the rod, that's what the Bible talks about in the book of Proverbs. They need that discipline, they need a strong leader of a father, they need a mother who's going to be with them all day long because dad's off at work. They need those parents and the children, that's the home, that's the family, it's important. It's important to the child because if he doesn't have it, he's going to go out and live wrong and mess up his life, he's going to bring his parents to shame. If the man is by himself, it's not good. Why? Because you tend to get into more trouble when you're by yourself. You get by yourself, nobody's around, that's where you usually get into trouble and do things that are wrong. Same thing with women, they need a leader. Women are designed to follow a strong leader that's designed to follow a man. I know that that is not the women's lib and the feminism and all that garbage, but you know what, women are designed to follow a leader that's a man in the home, that's the way God intended it to be. And men are designed to have a wife there, to care for, to nurture, to provide for, not to just be selfish. People who live by themselves could tend to become selfish because it's all about them. They don't have any wife, they don't have any kids that they're having to sacrifice for and pay for and work for. And so God has a plan of us being in this unit that's called a family, a mother, a father and children. Seems simple, but it's going by the wayside, it's disappearing around us, it's being broken down. Now I'm going to give you, I have six things here that I have listed that are responsible for the breakdown of the family in America and elsewhere. I mean the family's falling apart, it's disappearing. You say, I don't believe you. Okay, well listen to this, in the United States, this is the Census Bureau, release these figures that in 2005, for the first time in the history of the United States, the majority of households in America do not have a married couple living in that household. So there's, so if you have a household with a married couple living in it, you are in the minority now. That means most households involve people who are just single, maybe roommates, maybe persons living alone, or it could involve people who are living together but they're not married. Okay? There's a decline of basically what we would consider God's plan. A man, his wife, and you know, God willing there'd be children there, okay? We're seeing it disappear around us. We're seeing that it's now not even the norm, I mean it's less than half, in America. And in Canada, I was reading the statistics for Canada, it's even more extreme. Here's some statistics from Canada. The number of common law families, that's a man and a wife who are not married who have children together, surged 18.9% from 2001 to 2005, to nearly 1.4 million families. And Canada's not that big, there aren't that many people living there. 26% of families with children headed up by a single parent, one out of four. Only of the 1.4 million single parent families, about 20% are headed by men, just a man with children, no wife. The number of men at the head of single parent families is growing more than twice as fast as the number of women. So we see that this is a trend that's happening. We're seeing a breakdown in the family and it's going to have tremendous implications with morality, with kids who aren't being raised in the right kind of environment. They go up, they have no direction, they have a messed up life, they don't have any structure in the home. Okay, the family is important. Number one, why is the family being broken down around us? Why is it falling apart? Number one, because of the prevalence of fornication. Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter, actually, look at 1 Corinthians 10, just for the sake of time, I'll just read this for you. 1 Corinthians 10, and 1 Thessalonians 4, the Bible reads, Furthermore then, we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would abound more and more. For you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus, for this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication. That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor. See, there's an honor that comes with not fornicating. There's an honor that comes with being a virgin when you get married, when you walk across the wedding hall. And maybe you're not a virgin, but you can now decide today that you're going to live a clean and godly life, be sanctified, and say, I'm going to abstain from fornication. Look at 1 Corinthians 10, and I'm going to explain to you what fornication is, and why it's destroying the family. Fornication is people sleeping together that aren't married. Let me just break it right now for you. It's people who just live together, or maybe they don't live together, but they commit physical acts with each other. When they're not married, the Bible calls that fornication. Look at 1 Corinthians 10, Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. Look at the book of Exodus, where they had the cloudy pillar, remember they crossed the Red Sea when Moses led them out of the land of Egypt, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ, but with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Look at verse 7, Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. He's talking about that died because of this wicked sin. Here's what happened. The children of Israel, they came out of Egypt, they crossed the Red Sea, they were in the wilderness, they went to Mount Sinai, and remember Moses went up into Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments at the very mouth of God, and they were engraved in the ten tablets of stone of course on Mount Sinai. Well while Moses was up there, he was up there for forty days and forty nights. They didn't expect it to take that long, I mean it's only Ten Commandments, you know, so they didn't know why he's gone. He's going up there to receive the commandments from God, and he's gone for forty days and forty nights, and they don't know why. And so they begin to lose heart, they think he's never coming back, they don't know what's going on, and so they compel Aaron to make this golden calf, remember, and they went back to basically the false gods that they were worshipping the land of Egypt, they made this golden calf, and they worshipped it, and they said it was their god, and they began to have a wild, drunken party. I mean they were dancing, they were stripping off their coals completely naked, they were fornicating, doing all this stuff, and God got so angry that he killed twenty-three thousand people. There's a plague that broke out and destroyed twenty-three thousand. That's how God feels about fornication. He's saying here, neither let us commit fornication in verse eight, as some of them committed and fell in one day, three and twenty thousand. He's saying this is something that God feels strongly about, it's something that makes God angry, it's a wicked sin, in our society it's acceptable. As long as you love each other, right, it's okay, as long as you love each other it's okay. Wrong! He says as long as you're married it's okay, marriage is honorable and all, and the bed undefiled, but, whore mongers and adulterers, God will judge. First Corinthians six, I think you're chapter ten, right, flip back to chapter six, verse eighteen. The Bible reads just a two word sentence, flea fornication, period. I love short sentences in the Bible, of course the shortest verse about Jesus wept is famous. But he says here, flea fornication, period. What does it mean to flea? It's like somebody's chasing after you, you run screaming in the other direction. That's what he's saying here, flea fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that comitteth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. You don't have the right to defile your body by fornicating. Now what's wrong with fornication? Well God calls fornication uncleanness in the Bible. Why? Because it's unsanitary to sleep around. It's dirty, that's what the Bible says. That's where you get all the STDs, all the disease, all the dirt. Everybody has bacteria and germs living in their body, and that's all fine and dandy. I'm very comfortable with my germs. I'm even comfortable with my wife's germs. But I'm not comfortable with the germs of the entire world coming into my body. That's going to kill you. It's going to make you sick and decrepit when you are exchanging bacteria with every person in the world, with one person after another after another. That's not the way God designed your body to operate. And that's why you have all the sickness and disease and things going around, because people are committing fornication like you wouldn't believe. How has it destroyed the family? Now that fornication has suddenly become acceptable in our society, you don't have to be married. Just do what you want to do. Now we have literally 12 year olds, 13 year olds, 14 year olds who are committing fornication. I remember when I was in high school, there was a girl, and this was not a sleazy girl, she did not seem like a really nice, normal girl, and I just remember her saying when she was just a freshman in high school, she was 14 years old, it was like the first month of school, I overheard her saying that she had been with three different guys in her life to this point. Three different guys, and she's only 14, she's just coming into 9th grade. That's terrible. That's horrible. You say, how has it destroyed the family? I'll tell you how. Because what we have is people not getting married, or not getting married until they're much older now, because they just sleep around instead. You see, it used to be that when people became adults, they left their father and their mother and they got married. You know, 18, 19, 20 years old, when my parents got married, my dad was 20, my mom was 19, and that was the normalest thing in the world back then. And that was only, they got married, what, 1970? That wasn't that long ago, was it? I mean, that was just the most normal thing in the world. Nowadays, I tell people I got married when I was 19, whoa, man! You got married when you were 19? Because you know what the average age for getting married now is? 30. 30, but it used to be 20. Why? Let me give you a saying, and I don't mean to be offensive, this is just a saying that people say. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Who's ever heard that saying before? Right, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? And what you have is men who use women and just toss them aside when they're done with them. It's disgusting, it's revolting that what you have, men who have no intention of marrying that girl, they're just going to use her for a while, they're just going to have fun with her for a while, they're just going to defile her for a while, and then they just move on to the next one, and move on to the next one, and move on to the next one, move on to the next one. I can't understand sometimes why women can't see the pattern that these guys are just using them. I mean, you see these guys who will, they'll date a girl for years. Years and years, string them along and then dump them. And then date another one. You know, they're committing fortification all the while. And then string the next one along for a few years, and then dump them, and then string the next one along. And these girls, you know, wish they'd get married. They wish they'd have a family or something, and these, you know, I'm not saying it's all the men's fault, but you have men who do this, I mean, they just want to try this one, try this one for a while, use this, no intention of getting married, no intention of making kind of a commitment or settling down, they just want to use you and toss you aside. And so we see this pattern of fornication causing people not to get married until they're 30, 40 years old. So that's where you have a breakdown of the American family, now you have all these households of just a couple guys, a couple roommates, a couple guys living together. That didn't used to be normal, that used to be unheard of. People and girls just get together and live together as roommates, a couple guys live together or just be single and just sew your wild oats, do whatever you want, live single, commit fornication. Hey, why get married is the typical guy's mentality, he's getting everything he wants and the girl will give him everything he wants, and so, hey, why get married, right? That's wicked, that's ungodly. And you know, if you're a lady here tonight that's single, you got to not let men use you and guys use you like that. Hey, if they're not going to put the ring on your finger, then you ought to say, you know what, I'm going to keep myself pure there. If you want to be with me, then put the ring on my finger, make a commitment to me and tell me that I'm going to be the only one, to thee and to thee only, till death does do part. Hey, that's God's plan. But with all this fornication going around, we've lost sight of that. Now the family is, why get married? But it used to be that people didn't commit these kinds of acts with each other until they were married. And so there's a little bit of a motivation to get married, because you don't want to be celibate for the rest of your life, so you get married. That's God's plan, that's the way, that's right. But with fornication, we have people just staying single until they're 30, 40 years old, but they're not really staying celibate, I'll tell you right now, they're committing for fornication, with everybody who comes down the pike. It's ungodly, it's going to bring the wrath of God. But number two, not only that, well if you didn't like that, that was like the nicest point of the whole sermon, it's only going to get meaner, I'm sorry to warn you of that, but look at Luke chapter 16, verse number 15, if you didn't like that point, buckle your seatbelt. Luke 16, verse 15, and you know what, I've seen these girls who fall prey to this pattern, and I've told them, I've talked to a few of them and I said, you know what, don't you see what's happening in your life? And I said, you know, maybe if you start getting around some Christian guys, instead of all these worldly guys, maybe you get around a guy who actually loves you, and would actually make a commitment to you, and actually loves you, and not just loves, he just loves all the girls wrong, he doesn't love any of them. So you know, if you go on and on, and I'm not going to, but look at Luke 16, verse 15, number two, what is it that's leading the breakdown of the family, number one was fornication, number two, look at Luke 16, verse 15, it says, and he said unto them, ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God, the law and the prophets were until John, since that time the kingdom of God is preached and every man presses into it, and it's easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail, look at verse 18, whosoever putteth away his wife, of course putting away means divorce, whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, comitteth adultery, now isn't that pretty simple, I mean the Bible's not that hard to understand, is it, whosoever, that's the same whosoever that's in John 3 16, whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have everlasting life, I think it means everybody, whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, comitteth adultery, and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, comitteth adultery, look back at Matthew chapter 5, you're in Luke, just go back two books to Matthew chapter 5, now the first phrase that was there in Luke 16 15 was he said, you are they which justify yourselves before men, number one, fornication is breaking down the family, but number two, justification of divorce, the justification of divorce is what's destroying the family in America as we speak, people justify divorce, now I'm going to explain to you what I mean, but look at Matthew 5 31, the Bible reads, it hath been said, who said it, it wasn't God, but it hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement, but I say unto you, this is Jesus talking, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, comitteth adultery, so according to Jesus, if you marry a divorced woman, you just committed adultery, if you divorce your wife, you're causing her to commit adultery, pretty clear right, you say, wait a minute Pastor Anderson, wait a second, the Bible says here that there's an exception, that if fornication is the cause that people have a justification or grounds for divorce, who's ever heard somebody say before that, you know, if your wife cheats on you and your husband cheats on you, that's grounds for divorce, but granted, have you ever heard somebody say that, yeah, it sure hath been said, Jesus was right when he said it hath been said, because I sure done heard it a whole lot of times, and so yeah, it has been said a lot, but it's not true, now you say, wait a minute Pastor Anderson, it says there that fornication is the exception, saving for the cause of fornication, in Matthew 19 it says accept it be for fornication, well turn back to Deuteronomy 24, let's see where the law came from, and let's see if that's really what that means, look at Deuteronomy chapter 24, now we live in a day, you say why is this breaking down the fact, because we live in a day where even in the most strictest straightest independent fundamental Baptist church, the average independent fundamental Baptist church will tell you that you have a right to be divorced from your spouse if they cheat on you, or if there's abuse, or if they left you, or if they have abandoned you, or if they don't want to be with you, then you can divorce them as long as it's their fault, I mean I've grown up with this, I've watched many a Baptist preacher preside over people in his own church that are getting divorced, telling them, well you have grounds for divorce, because your husband cheated on you, because your wife cheated on you, your husband's gone and you don't know where he's at, he doesn't want to be with you, you have the grounds to divorce him and go marry somebody else, wrong, I'm going to prove it to you, you say well I don't know pastor, and I say, then just allow the Bible to prove it to you right now, ok, first thing that you've got to learn is that number one, fornication and adultery are two different things, you say what's the difference, adultery is committed between people that are married, fornication is committed between people that are unmarried, that's the difference, now if I were to go out and to find some woman and commit acts with her, ok, whatever you want to call it, I don't want to say things in front of the children, but if I were to go out and sleep with some other woman tonight, would I be committing fornication, no, I'd be committing adultery, because I'm married, right, but let's say we have two unmarried people, and they sleep together and they're not married, that's fornication, that's the difference, do you follow that so far, it's not the same word, it's two different words, adultery is people that are married, fornication is people that are not married, so if my wife were to go out and commit adultery, is that fornication, no, the only grounds for divorce quote unquote is fornication, you say well wait a minute I'm confused, well let's look at the Bible, if we're going to understand Jesus quoting the law and talking about the law, let's go back to the law and see what the law actually said about divorce, Deuteronomy 24, the Bible says in verse 1, when a man hath taken a wife and married her, right, he went to church and they said I now pronounce thee man and wife, you may kiss the bride, I do, I do, all that, when a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he didn't really feel like they were compatible, is that what it says, and she find no favour in his eyes because she was a terrible cook, she find no favour in his eyes because she was always nagging him to fix stuff around the house, I'm sorry, I'm just getting some things off my chest, you know, and it come to pass that he finds out that he really didn't love her anymore, no, it says because he had found some uncleanness in her, now what does that mean, that she didn't take a shower, is that what it means, oh no, she never washed her hands, she doesn't wash her hair, she had thread locks, no that's not what it means, it says he found some uncleanness in her, it's talking about he found some uncleanness like before they were married, she was sleeping around, and that's not what he expected, okay, he thought that he was marrying someone who was a virgin, okay, and he finds 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, now watch the next verse, this is the key verse, and when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife, now that's how we know that we're talking about a much different situation here, look, don't you think that what Jesus said in Matthew 5 is going to be compatible with the laws of God, or you think Jesus is saying, oh I'm just going to change the law, well in the same chapter in Matthew 5 18, he said think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets, I came not to destroy, but to fulfill, he said I'm not going to change what God has said, he said I'm going to explain to you what God has said, he said, here he gave a specific case where a man can divorce his wife and she can marry somebody else, but it's for fornication, what does that mean, before he has even consummated the marriage, this is what we're talking about, we're not talking about a year after they're married, two years after they're married, ten years after they're married, twenty years after, we're talking about a man and a woman who just got married, he goes into her for the first time, he goes into the bedroom with her and says, he finds her that she has uncleanness in her, he says, I changed my mind, and he writes her a bill of divorcement and says, you're no longer my wife, this is not something that he does even a week later, or two weeks later, this is the only time, this is what divorce was even instituted for, not for people who are already married, but for people who just got married and have not yet consummated the marriage, that's what it says, you say, I don't believe you, okay, turn back to two chapters, Deuteronomy 22, we'll see it again, Deuteronomy 22, see look, the Bible is very consistent, there aren't any contradictions in the Bible, if you believe that there are contradictions in the Bible, then it must not be written by God, it must have been written by men, because if God wrote it, it's not going to contradict itself, do you understand that, so everything we're going to see, I'm going to show you stuff in Deuteronomy, Matthew chapter 1, Matthew chapter 5, Matthew 19, Deuteronomy 22, Deuteronomy 24, Luke 16, and they all agree with each other, look if you would at Deuteronomy 22 verse 13, if a man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, and give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her, not a maid, maid meaning virgin, it's old English, he's saying look, I got married to this woman, I went in, and I found that she was not a virgin, and he's saying, I want to divorce her, but look, it turns out, and I don't want to go into this, it's complicated, and I don't want to take too long, but go down to verse number 19, let's say it turns out that she was a virgin, and he was lying, or he was making this up, in verse 19 it says, they shall immerse him in a hundred shekels of silver, he has to pay like a defamation lawsuit, he has to pay a hundred shekels of silver for even saying that about his wife, but it wasn't true, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he has brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel, and she shall be his wife, he may not put her away all his days, he cannot divorce her, if it's found out that she was a virgin when they got married, you understand that? Now look, is it wrong to marry somebody who's not a virgin, of course not, God does not even want these people to divorce their wife, he said because of the hardness of man's heart, he gave them divorcement, he gave them this law, turn to Matthew 19, he gave them this law who's saying, look, if you, maybe a man that's a virgin, and he kept himself pure, he expected his wife, it's the same thing, he goes in under her, he finds her not to be a virgin, he says, because if you're unforgiving, you know, you can't see past that, you can't forgive that, you can't get over that, then I'm allowing you the option of divorcing her, but, but, you know, it's not like he's saying that you should divorce your wife, you know, and he's not saying, oh, down the road you find that out, and divorce, wrong, it's something that happens the day they get married, do you see that? It was a very, it was just a certain case where this could happen, okay, where somebody, you know, thought that they were getting one thing, and they got something to do, that's all it's talking about. I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad if they're not a virgin, you know, we live in a society where people commit fornication, and a lot of people have just been taught that it's okay and whatever, hey, it's always, it's never too late to start over and say, from now on I'm going to live clean and pure and righteous and godly and then so forth. But look at Matthew 19, and you'll see where this law came from. He says in Matthew 19, verse number, let me find my place here, verse number 3, the Pharisees also came when they were attempting him and saying to him, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? He's saying, did you just divorce your wife for whatever you want? For every cause? Anything you want? And he answered and said to them, have you not read? Then he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, for this cause shall a man lead father and mother, and shall plead to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh, what god therefore join together, let not man put asunder. Period. I mean, that should answer the question. Don't divorce your wife, period. God has joined you together, man shouldn't put it asunder. You've vowed a vow to God and said, I promise to keep me only unto thee, you know, so long as we both shall live. You're breaking your promise if you get a divorce for any reason, you broke a promise. But look at this, verse 7, they're not accepting Jesus' answer. And so they say, why did Moses then command to give her riding and divorcement and to put her away? Verse 8, he saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your heart, suffered you, that means allowed you to put away your wife, 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, committed adultery. And whoso maryeth her, which is put away in the middle. Now turn to Matthew 1, you're in chapter 19, go back to chapter 1. Matthew chapter number 1. You say, why are those statistics, I mean, so many unmarried households, 75% of marriages are ending in divorce, people are just single or living together, and we're losing that family where it's a man, a woman, and children. What used to be the normal is now becoming more and more rare. I mean, sometimes we went to the Grand Canyon, people wanted to take pictures of our family, like strangers. They said, people actually said like, wow, a normal family. And they lined us up and took our picture. Is that true, honey? Yes, it is. They said, no. It was like we were in the zoo or something. I felt like I was on display at the zoo. Normal family. This is an endangered species. Donate to keep the species alive. Look at Matthew chapter 1 verse number 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, what does the word espoused mean? Married. That's my spouse in the back because we're married. When she was espoused to Joseph, so they've been married before they came together. So have they consummated the marriage? No. Back in those days it was a little bit different. They would get married and then they would have like a celebration and a feast for about seven days. It was a week long marriage. Like we have a wedding the last one day, they have a wedding the last seven days. At the end of the seven days they would consummate the marriage. Well here it says before they came together, so they're married but they have not yet consummated the marriage, she was found with child or pregnant of the Holy Ghost. God had placed Jesus Christ in her womb. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, so is he doing something wrong here? No. Being a just man. He's doing the right thing. It says, and not willing to make her a public example. He wasn't trying to tell everybody about it or anything. He loved this girl. He was going to marry her, but all of a sudden, whoa, she's pregnant. He doesn't want to deal with that stigma and that shame of the whole thing. He doesn't want to be maybe married to somebody who has a child with somebody else. That's just his choice. He just says, I don't want to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. He said she's just going to quietly secretly divorce her because he found out she was pregnant. Was he right to do so? I mean, if he wants, he can do that. Why? Because that's what God allowed in Deuteronomy 24. How in the world have we taken what's so clear in the Bible, Deuteronomy 22, Deuteronomy 24, Matthew 1, Matthew 5, Matthew 19, Luke 16, and we've turned it into this thing where if your wife commits adultery, you can divorce her. Husband commits adultery, you can divorce him. If your wife is abusive, if your husband is abusive, you can divorce him. If they leave you, if they depart, then you can divorce them. It's wrong. It's a lie. The Bible says no, and yet as soon as you justify divorce, people get divorced like crazy. Back in the day when people preached that divorce was wrong, it was almost unheard of. But in the last hundred years, it's become the norm. I mean, everybody, my parents are divorced. Pastor Stephen L. Anderson's parents are divorced. Divorced after 34 years of marriage. I mean, that's how common it is. You know, okay, my mom was raised, she had five brothers and sisters, so six kids. You know how many divorces in that family? Seven. Okay? So we got six kids. Out of the six kids, seven divorces. Literally. Because a couple of them got divorced twice. One of them did not get divorced. The other five all got divorced, two of them got divorced twice. I mean, that's a pretty big statistic. I mean, isn't that amazing? Why? Because when you're going to the most right-wing churches, I mean the most conservative Baptist churches, and their justified divorce, what do you expect the world's going to do? And as soon as you find a loophole where you say, well, you can only divorce under this circumstance, people are going to find a way to apply that loophole to them if they want out of a marriage. Yes, they will. I mean, I've even heard women say to me, to my face, well, he looked at pornography, so that means he committed adultery in his heart, so that means that I have justification to divorce him. I mean, think about what they're saying. So if any man ever lusts after another woman, his wife can divorce him. Okay, well, then I guess 99% of women can just divorce their husband. I mean, that's ridiculous, but that's the way they'll twist things. Or, you know, these people who say that if your wife leads you, or if your husband leads you, or separates from you, that you can divorce them, and go marry somebody else. I've heard a pastor of an independent, fundamental, King Jade Bible, someone he's heard saying to a woman whose husband had not left her, well, you can get a divorce because he's left you emotionally. I mean, he's already departed emotionally. I mean, he's already left the marriage, like, by his actions. I mean, I know he's still living in the house, but he's practically left you. I mean, it's like, they just come up with all this weird stuff. Or I've heard pastors say this, well, I'm going to get divorced. I never tell anybody to divorce. I just tell people sometimes to get separated, to work things out. Yeah, that's a real good way to work things out, to get separated. Honey, let's improve our marriage. Let's just get separated for a while. I'm going to go get an apartment, and live on my own for a while, and then what happens? The guy goes and lives in an apartment for a while, and then what do you know? Next thing, he's got a new girlfriend. And, you know, the next thing you know, they're divorced. It gets worse, because the Bible says, let not the wife depart from her husband. Not just divorce, but don't even leave. No. Oh, well, you know, I don't want my kids to be exposed to sin. He's into that. Don't leave! How much clearer can it be in the Bible? You say, well, you don't know what my husband is like. You married him. And you've got to think about that when you get married. This is who you're going to be with for the rest of your life. Or, oh, man, but my wife, you don't understand how bad it is. Look, you pick the one that you picked, that's who you've got to stay with. And sometimes that could be a tough road of hope. But it's what God has sent you. I mean, I thank God that divorce is wrong, because I would hate to be living with my wife in a marriage, thinking that at any time, she could just decide that the grass is green or on the other side of the fence. Wouldn't that be terrible? If I felt like, oh man, I better do this and that just right, you know, I better not say the wrong thing, because my wife is just going to leave. Or, oh man, I better not burn the food, my husband is going to leave. I would hate to just feel this lack of security, this insecurity where I don't even know if my wife is going to stay with me. Or if my husband, you know, a woman's husband is going to stay with her. That's terrible. God wants you to be able to be secure and to know that it's you who are together for life. That's where you're going to build some real love and companionship with somebody you should be with for your whole life. And so the number two reason why the family is being broken down is because of the justification of divorce. I've got to hurry, but I'm running out of time. And by the way, I know I'm not going to get to .5 just because of time, so I'm going to break .5 into .3, just a little mention. You want to know why a lot of divorce is happening? Because people don't have kids anymore. Here's the exact statistic. The most common time by far for people to get divorced is either in the first two years of marriage. We've all known people who got divorced in the first two years of marriage. Okay? Okay, in the first two years of marriage, you know, Britney Spears, she got divorced on like one weekend, okay? So you got the first two years of marriage or the first two years after the kids leave the home. Did you know that? I mean, when the last kid leaves the home, those next two years are the second most likely time for divorce. First two years or first two years after the kids leave the home. You know when my parents got divorced? Right after the fourth kid left the house. I mean, my parents had four children. I'm number three. I have an older sister, an older brother, and a younger sister. As soon as my younger sister was out of the house, you know, not long after, my parents got divorced. Terrible. You see, why is that? Because there's something about having kids that creates a bond between you and your wife, you and your husband, and keeps that family together. Now look, have you ever heard people say, well, we're going to stay together for the kids? I've heard that, you've heard of that, right? Hey, that's part of what God intended. You know, but you've got these people who don't even have kids, or they have like one kid, or two kids sometimes, and you know, they say, well, I can get divorced because I only have one kid, you know. So we're only going to screw up one kid. But I mean, if you were going to screw up like ten kids, you'd think twice about it, right? And see, here's the thing. Me and my wife, people always say, so you're done now, you've got your girl, right? Because they see like boy, boy, boy, girl. So you're done, you've got your girl, right? I always tell them the same thing. There's no end in sight. I'm going to have as many kids as I can. They're like, what? You know, they think you're insane. But you know what? When my kids start leaving the home, I'm probably, you know, if God allows, I'm probably going to have toddlers in the house if my kids are going to be leaving the house. I mean, by the time my last kid leaves the house, we're going to be so old, it's going to be like, honey, it's not even worth it. You might as well just finish, you know. You might as well just stay together, you know. But you got these people in their 50s, you know, these people in their 40s, their last kid leaves the house when they're in their 40s or 50s, they say, oh man, you know, they think that they're so cool, these people in their 50s. You know, if you're in your 50s, act like you're in your 50s, please, or if you're in your 40s, don't try to dress like a teenager. Don't have a midlife crisis. But you get these people in their 50s and they think they've still got it, you know, and they just think that their grass is greener on the other side of the fence and they want to go try something else for a while. You know what? They ought to do is stick with the person that raised their kids, that they paid for, that they've loved, that's worked hard for them, their husband's paid for them their whole life, their wife is slaves and worked hard to raise kids and change towels and diapers, and that's what you ought to be loyal to. And so by the time my last kid leaves the home, I'm going to be so old, my wife's going to be so old, we're going to be out of the danger zone, forgetting everyone else. You know, it's kind of funny, but at the same time, it's true. You know, kids tend to keep people together and their marriage strong, and it keeps them something in common, something to work together at, a reason to stay together. Now, I have all the reason to stay together with my wife, Ineke, because God said so, and I love my wife. Why would I go out and try to be with some strange woman? I'd rather be with my wife that God gave me, but you know what? God has designed children to help keep them together. You know, with the advent of all the birth control pills, all these birth control methods, all this stuff, that's where you see marriage laws are being weakened. You say, wait a minute, you're not saying what I think you are. I am saying what you think I am saying. Birth control is wrong, and you say, oh, you're crazy, you're fanatic, you're nuts. Call me whatever you want. Hey, the first time I ever heard a pastor preach against birth control, I thought he was nuts. The first time I ever heard a pastor my whole life preach against birth control, I was 18 years old, and I was sitting in a Romanian church. You know, this wasn't even America. Actually, it was America, but it was a Romanian Baptist church in America. I'm sitting there, and the church started, and this church lasted like four hours. I used to go there every week, and I'd sit there, and I was trying to get better at Romanian, and so I would sit in church, and I had a bunch of friends that went there and everything, and I learned how to speak Romanian almost fluently, because back then I was learning all kinds of foreign languages, and I sat in that church, and the pastor started preaching about how birth control is wrong. I thought he was nuts. At first I thought, man, I need to get better at Romanian, because I'm getting mixed up about what this guy is saying right now. But then I realized, no, that is what he said. And he explained, explained, and I already planted a seed in my mind, and I thought to myself, man, that's crazy. I can't even believe that. But you know, I could never just get it out of my mind, because then I just would read the Bible, like trying to prove it wrong. And I was just like, that's what the Bible says. I mean, the Bible says, you know, and I don't have time to go into it. I have whole sermons on that side. I mean, the Bible commands you to have children. I was like, man, that's what it says. And it took me years to fully come to grips with that, you know, just because I was taught one way my whole life. But once I heard him say that, and then I just kept reading and kept reading, and I said, you know what, he's right. But you say, what else is the reason why the family is being broken down? Well, look, if you would, at 1 Timothy 5, verse 14. Now, you know, this may seem like a very radical sermon, but in reality, I mean, it's very normal stuff. I mean, it's just the Bible. But because our society has drifted so far, you know, I mean, what's considered normal anymore? I mean, I'll tell you one thing. Some of the things that the world considers normal, I think are pretty weird. And so, what's normal? You know, I see what the Bible says. It seems pretty normal to me. I mean, you know, you grow up, you live with your parents. I lived with my parents until I was 19 years old. When I turned 19, I got married, I left my parents' house, I got my own apartment with my wife, and we began to have children. I mean, that seems pretty normal to me. But look at 1 Timothy 5, verse 14. Here's another reason why the family is being destroyed around us. The Bible says in verse 14, I will, therefore, be saying, I want, this is God, I will, therefore, that the younger women, and if you say it in context here, we're talking about younger than 60. It says, I will, therefore, that the younger women marry, who wants to be married, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion of the adversary to speak with others. So what's the will of God for a woman? To get married, to have children, and to guide the house. Look, flip over, if you would, a few pages to Titus chapter number 2. Just a few pages forward. We saw these this morning in a totally different light, but Titus chapter 2, look at verse 4. That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. So what are we seeing here? We're seeing that God's will is for a woman to be a homemaker, right? But what have we had? In the last 40, 50, 60, 70 years, whenever it started, it was a slow process that's gone on over decades of taking women out of the home and putting them in the workforce. Uh oh, whoops. Taking women out of the home and putting them in the workforce. Now, stop and think about this for a minute. If my wife and I both worked, but she does not work, she stays home with the kids and raises the kids like the Bible says. But let's say my wife and I both worked. Think about it. We'd drop our kids off at school, you know, at what, 7.30 in the morning, right? If she didn't work, I'm saying. If she did work. We'd drop them off at 7.30 in the morning or whatever, 8 o'clock, and then we'd go off to work, right? And then the little kids, we'd drop them off at daycare. And then I'd go to work and she'd go to work, Monday night. We'd both get home at about 5 o'clock or so. We're both tired, right? We've both been working all day. The kids have been in school. The kids all just got home. We all just got home. Where's dinner? Nobody made it, okay? So, it's, well, we're gonna pull out the old frozen, you know, hungry man for the umpteenth time and throw it in the microwave. No, that's not healthy, okay? But, you say, oh, well, where's dinner? Well, somebody's gotta make dinner, right? Oh, well, the wife, she's gonna make dinner, right? Wait a minute, she's been working all day too, right? So, now you're probably gonna have to both make dinner or take turns. And then who's gonna clean the house? I mean, do you really think it's fair for a woman to work a 40 hour job and then her husband expects her to do all the house cleaning? Well, no. I mean, if she's working 40 hours, he's working 40 hours, right? He needs to pick up the vacuum and the mop and the broom and start cleaning the house right? So, now, they both work 40 hours, then they're both gonna do all this cleaning and cooking, right? Where's gonna be the time with the children? I mean, think about it. You come home from work, you got all this housework to do. Your kids are going to bed at 8 or 9 or whatever. You've only got 2 or 3 hours where the kids are even at home. I mean, how are you gonna be spending time with your kids? What, when are you gonna find time to spend time with your kids? When you got all this housework, you got all this cooking to do. You got, you're too busy to even spend time with the kids. That's why we have kids. I know what you do with them. You stick them in front of the TV. You stick them in front of a movie. You go play in your room. Get away from me. Go to your room. Go to your room. Go to your room. Go to your room. That's not good for kids to be left to themselves. And by the way, most of the time, the woman going to work, you say, well, we have to. We need the money. Most of the time, it does not even make financial sense for women to work. Can I give you some reasons why? Number one, you get put in a totally higher tax bracket. If you have two people working, higher tax bracket, number one. Number two, if your wife is working, now you gotta have another vehicle for your wife. Now we have two vehicles, but it's more of a luxury than anything. When we were, we were married for years and years and years with one vehicle. We had two or three kids by the time we got a second car. I mean, we, we went for years and years. One vehicle, my wife, you know what she would do? She would drop me off at work and pick me up again. Sometimes I'd walk to work. Many times I ended up walking to work because I lived so close to work. Other times she'd drop me off when I lived further from work, if she needed the car. Other times she would just stay home until I got home. So you need to buy another car. You gotta buy insurance for that car. You gotta pay for the gas in that car. And then your wife's gotta have all her work clothes. You know, she's gotta have her fancy little work clothes and everything like that. All kinds of outfits. Then, when you get home, I'm tired. She's tired. Hey, you know what? Let's just order a pizza, right? I mean, let's just go out to eat. We don't have time to cook. Let's just go get something out. That costs a lot of money. It's a lot cheaper to make things from scratch. But you know, making things from scratch takes a long time. Now when I grew up, I thought making things from scratch was like, I thought if you make a cake from scratch, you get cake mix. And I put, you know, mix in buttermilk and eggs. That's what I thought was making from scratch. I mean, when I was a kid, I literally did not even know that anybody even still knew how to just get like flour and just do the whole thing. Or baking bread. I mean, I'd never even heard anybody baking bread until I was married. And my wife was baking bread. I was like, what? You buy a loaf of bread? You know, I thought cooking dinner is like you get a loaf of bread, cheese, hamburger meat, you make patty melts, you know, dinner. Or pigs in a blanket, you know, you take a store bought biscuits, you know, the little biscuits with a hee-hee, you know that guy? And you grab a hot dog, you throw the biscuit around the hot dog, you throw them in the oven, pigs in a blanket. You know, or you grab a box of mac and cheese, yeah, two tablespoons of butter and a quarter cup of milk, mac and cheese. OK, but look, that's all more expensive than cooking from scratch. And it's a lot less healthy. But see, when you cook from scratch, I mean, dinner, it's honestly going to take my life like literally two or three hours to make dinner sometimes. I'm not even kidding. I mean, it takes hours, you know, just making everything from scratch. But it's so much cheaper and so much healthier to make things from scratch. So now, we've already given a bunch of money to Uncle Sam because I don't want to give them another red cent. I'm just mad and bitter about paying my tax on April petite. I owe them thousands of dollars and I'm getting mad right now just thinking about it. But you're giving more to Uncle Sam so they can spend it on all kinds of worthless trash. Number two, you're buying another car, another car payment, another insurance, another gas bill. Look at the price of gas. Then she's got to have special clothes. Now, you're eating out all the time. You're spending a bunch of money on food. I mean, do you see how a lot of the profits that you're making are just being dwindled away and gone? I mean, you're really not going to end up ahead. Not only that, but you end up buying everything more expensive. I mean, my wife is my purchasing agent. She goes out, she bought this suit for five bucks at the thrift store. All my, I don't know if I've ever paid more than 10 bucks for a suit. Except one time I was out of town, I needed a suit, I went to the department store and bought a suit. My wife goes out, now you went out and bought that suit at Cole's department store. He doesn't have a wife, you know what I'm saying? But anyway, I'm not going to go to Cole's and buy a suit because I buy 10 suits at that price. He doesn't have time. I don't have time. Nobody has time. She has time, okay? Because she is, that's her job, you understand? To run out. She buys everything, free cycle, you know, I don't even know if it's Craigslist and eBay and thrift stores and everything. She saves me thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars a year. And a penny saved is not a penny earned. A penny saved is like five pennies earned. Because when you earn more, you got to pay more taxes, you got to pay more. When you save money, I mean, that's just savings. And I'm telling you, my wife saves me more money by staying at home than she would by going out and making more. And look, let's face it, no matter what anybody says, man, it's just a statistic. I mean, it's just a fact that men have more earning power than women. I mean, if you took what men make, by and large, they usually make more than women. It's just a fact. I mean, just men, men and women who both work, usually the man is making more money. Okay, I can make more money than my wife can out in the world working, okay? And so, what I do is I just work like 60 hours because my wife takes a burden off my shoulders by doing stuff like that. But see, if I'm doing cooking and cleaning and housework, I'm not going to be able to work 60 hours and do all that stuff. But if my wife is handling the house, I can go out, work 60 hours at my job and really bring in some serious dough. She saves money. We're not spending as much. Do you see how we end up actually being more wealthy, better off by having a wife at home? But the world will tell you, oh, you can't make it. You know, you got to have those two incomes. Look, if I need two incomes, you mark my words. I promise you, if I ever get to the point where we need two incomes, I will just work two jobs. I would rather work 80 hours a week and have my wife at home. Say, oh, it's going to tire, it's going to wear you out. Look, it's important to me. I'll work 80 hours a week and have my wife stay home with the kids because I want my kids to have a parent raising them, not a stranger, not the daycare nanny, not some school somewhere, not some nanny somewhere, not some dirty daycare somewhere. I want my kids to grow up being raised by their mom and dad. I didn't have kids so that somebody else could raise them. I had them so I could raise them and she could raise them. That's why I had kids, not so they could be raised by some institution somewhere. Look, would you drop off a million bucks at one of these daycares? Would you hang on to this for me? It's a suitcase with a million bucks. I'll pick it up at five o'clock. That's when my kids are worth more to me than that. I'm not going to drop my kids off. Who knows what's going to happen to them? Well, you don't know if something bad is going to happen. Well, you don't know that something bad is not going to happen. Look at all the molestation. Look at all the weird stuff that goes on. Don't look at me like I don't know what I'm talking about because it goes on every day all over America. And so, women working outside the home, pursuing their career, doing their own thing is part of the problem in this country. Oh, but women have been freed. Going to work all day is freedom? My wife has way more freedom. She doesn't have somebody breathing down her neck. I'm at work all day. She does what she wants. I mean, she doesn't have anybody telling her, do this, do this, do this, do this. I'm gone. I don't even know what goes on. Anyway, look, how is it freedom, ladies, to go and have a boss telling you what to do all day? Well, you got your freedom. Women's liberation, right? Liberate women. Free at last. Now we can go to work and have somebody tell us what to do all day. Now we can work 40 hours a week and then come home and still have to cook and still have to clean and still have to care for the kids. Oh, isn't that wonderful? Isn't that great? Who wouldn't want to stay home all day? It's great. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, look, why would it be so terrible for women to stay home with the kids? I mean, take them to the zoo, do whatever. Yeah, it's hard work, but so is working in the workforce hard work. Hey, why not do the right work? You're going to be working no matter what you do. Why don't you do the work that's... I mean, look, I think my wife's job is much more fulfilling than my job. Wow, I installed... You know how fulfilling my job is? I install fire alarm systems and service fire alarm systems. I was in the airport yesterday at Sky Harbor Airport. I just flew in from Oklahoma City on Saturday morning. I'm standing there. I was so tired and I barely slept and I'm staring at the baggage carousel going around and the fire alarm went off. And they have a siren at Sky Harbor. It's like... And the lights are all flashing. You know, nobody did anything. I didn't do it. I mean, I just stole the things. I'm like, I'm too tired. I'm not going anywhere. I just sat down and said, I'm going to wait for my bag. Nobody did anything. People just ignored it. And all these things are flashing. And you know, they're so strict about it, man. They got to be like every 15 feet. I mean, they were just right there. Just boom, boom, boom. I mean, a million of them all over the ceiling. They're all flashing and they all say fire. Nobody's doing anything. Pretty fulfilling job, huh? I put in a bunch of noise makers that nobody cares about. My wife deals with some noise makers, but at least she's raising them. At least she's training human beings, right? She's raising great Christians and soul winners or preachers or mothers or fathers. She's raising a human being. I'm playing with wires all day, climbing around in ceilings, crawling through attics and stuff. I think my wife has a much more fulfilling job than I do. But no, let's liberate her. Let's put her in a little business pantsuit and send her off to work somewhere. And you see the result of it in our society. Kids who grow up without a mom and a dad raising them, without mom being with them all day long, teaching them, loving them, training them. And then when dad gets home, dad doesn't have just piles of housework to do and he's got to eat hungry man again, you know, banquet buffet again, Salisbury steak again. What is Salisbury steak? I don't even know what it is. It's like, you know, I went to a restaurant one time, I saw Salisbury steak on the menu. I'm like, I think I'm going to order this in a restaurant. What are you going to do, throw a TV dinner in the microwave? It was like 16 bucks. I was like, what is Salisbury steak? I was like, that's something that you get in a, in a dinner. It's just like a brown piece of meat. You don't know what it is. And then the dessert is just like this glowing purple jelly with some kind of starch in it. Like, you don't know what it is. What is it? You know? No, when dad gets home, the housework is done. You know, this is, you know, it's the perfect world. It's not always going to be like this, but dad gets home, the housework's done, the dishes are done, dinner's ready, he sits back and rests after a long day at work. And then you know what? The kids say, dad, play with me. And he says, okay, I'll play with you. Let's spend time together. And then dad reads the Bible to the kids before bed and spends time with them and plays them on a daily basis, not just on Sundays, our big family days. So we can't go to church, but it's all week long. We're at work. Nobody spends any time with the kids. So now it's Sunday, we got to have family time. And then you got people not going to church because they got to spend time with their family on Sunday. I'd rather have a little less money in the bank and come home and kick my feet up and say, my work is done. And I'm kidding, of course, because you know, there are times when you got to help your wife in the housework and I help her out when she's pregnant and everything, especially I pitch in and lend a helping hand. But I would hate that to just be my lifestyle, having to work and do all the housework and eat garbage and cook the food myself. And then it would be garbage if I couldn't cook anything. Okay. I can only follow instructions that say like, microwave is on high for six and a half minutes. Anything beyond that, I get confused. But anyway, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Bob, thank you so much for people that come out of church.