IN THIS DAY AND HOUR WHEN SO FEW PEOPLE SEEM TO BE ESTABLISHING THEIR HOMES UPON THE GODLY PRINCIPLES SET FORTH IN THE BIBLE IT IS NO WONDER THAT THERE SEEMS TO BE SO LITTLE PEACE IN THOSE HOMES. NATURALLY, PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE FAMILY OF GOD’S REDEEMED CHILDREN CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO USE THE BIBLE AS A HANDBOOK ON HOW TO HAVE A HAPPY HOME; BUT THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE FOR A CHRISTIAN MAN AND WOMAN TO TRY TO ESTABLISH A HOME, WITHOUT DOING IT GOD’S WAY. THEREFORE, I FEEL THAT IT IS TIME FOR A LOT OF CHRISTIAN PARENTS TO TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT WHAT THE BIBLE HAS TO SAY ABOUT THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE FATHER, THE MOTHER, AND THE CHILDREN IN CHRISTIAN HOME, IF THAT HOME IS EVER GOING TO PLEASE GOD.
THE REASON SO MANY PARENTS ARE ALWAYS CRYING TO SOMEONE ELSE FOR THE ANSWER TO THEIR DILEMMA IN LIFE, IS BECAUSE THEY HAVE TRIED TO LIVE THEIR LIVES ACCORDING TO THE PATTERN OF THE WORLD, INSTEAD OF ACCORDING TO THE PERFECT PATTERN SET FORTH IN THE WORD OF GOD. THE BIBLE HAS INSTRUCTIONS FOR EACH MEMBER OF A HOUSEHOLD TO FOLLOW, AND IF THEY WILL FOLLOW THEM, GOD WILL BE ON HAND TO HELP WHEN THE GOING GET ROUGH, SO LET US LOOK AT SOME OF THOSE INSTRUCTIONS, AS WE DEAL WITH THIS LITTLE MESSAGE WHICH WE ARE TITLING, “LIVING IN PEACE.”
THE DEVIL WILL ROB US OF OUR PEACE
Our first reading will be from the 5th chapter of Ephesians. We are going to be reading from Ephesians, Colossians and 1st Peter, while we are on this particular subject. We are living in a time when this world, socially, morally, in every area of human life, is going to pieces. It is a picture of the end time. I would like for us to take a serious look at the world in it’s overall social image. If you do, you will see the world as it was in the days when the gospel first came. These epistles were written at that time, to the various Christian churches, but try to keep in mind, they were written in the light of the needs that existed with human beings in those assemblies, as they as individuals embraced the faith and showed forth an effort to become a part of the Christian body. Therefore as we look into the word of God, I pray that God will help me say these things in a wise way, but since we see the world drifting in it’s social and moral tendencies like it is, if we as a human being do not know where we as a child of God stand in relationship to the word of God, and how it is to be applied to our particular lives, and how we are to allow the grace of God to cultivate and make this word a living part of us, there are enough existing conditions in the world about us, to drive us into a corner. Many times you are found going to bed and trying to sleep with your own particular problem, because somehow or other you have never learned how to apply the scriptures to your particular circumstance. We realize, Jesus said these words, In the world you will have tribulation. That means, the devil, as he rules society, every mortal individual who is a sinner, (and unbeliever,) he (the devil) is going to see to it that the world is never at peace with itself. He will see to it that he can do everything to make your day of life miserable if you do not know how to cope with it. But Jesus said, In me you shall have pace. There is a way that that peace can absolutely be a part of our thinking, and our everyday life. The world itself may never see the peace that you have in your life. They may many times watch you and wonder what it takes to aggravate you. That of course, is strictly left up to us as individuals. As we read here from Ephesians 5:21, we notice that the apostle Paul is exhorting this particular body of people made up of sinners saved by the grace of God. They at one time had been pagan worshipers, of every kind of deity under the sun and their life styles could vary in many respects, but as Paul says this, “Submitting yourselves,” take the Webster’s dictionary, and you will see that the word “submitting” has many meanings. Yet to us it means surrendering yourselves one to another. This is not talking about surrendering yourself to the world, but rather, surrendering as a child of God, to other children of God, in an atmosphere of holiness. The only thing you and I can ever surrender, is that of our personal will, how we think something ought to be done, and so forth. You have always heard it said, I am going to have the last word. He is always having the last word. She is always having the last word. Well if someone grows up in life always wanting the last word, that person is not submissive, that person is controlled by their own motivation, because they think like that. Therefore if we look at this subject the right way, we find out that many times the way we are found walking through this world, is not according to what we learned when we first accepted Christ. Rather, it is what we started thinking when we were born and began to come to a mental understanding of who we were and what we wanted in life. Yet when we become a child of God, the Bible says, “If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature,” he has been brought into relationship with something and someone, who begins to lay before him or her an image of what a new man and a new woman should begin to be living like. Many times we are very thankful, very outspoken in saying, God saved me at such and such a time and such and such a place. That is all true, we have to know where that took place, but there are certain areas of our life, as we walk along, we might be found guilty of guarding. It might be a certain area of our inner being that we do not want the Lord to invade too quickly, because right there is where we really are sensitive. You have heard it said, That is the soft spot. We do not want the Lord to really get hold of that at first. Yet this is the very spot in the ultimate objective of the will of God, that He really wants. He knows that spot of your life is what you have been having battles with, and that is the area of your life that you do not have peace with. You are robbed of true victory. However we find Paul giving a solution, “Submitting yourselves one to another, in the fear of God.” As God looks down upon His body of children today, I would like for us to look at this as a natural earthly father, A true, honest earthly father is going to look upon the family of children he has begotten into this world, with love and respect. That is, if he is a true father. If he is one of these modernist kind, that can father a child into the world but does not have sense enough to know how to set an image, and live a lifestyle that can be basically and principally for the betterment of that child, that child can grow up to be like a wild animal. Of course we can look at that in two different way, but you know yourself, a true father, concerning that offspring of his, wants to do everything he can to mold in that young child, proper values of life, because there is where certain things have got to start. Therefore knowing this, that father is not going to show partiality to a certain child. He is not going to show respect of persons to that child, and make it obvious. A man or woman that does such things to their own offspring, are cultivating problems, and they are molding selfishness and greed in them, that many times they have to pay for when they are older. If we are exhorted to submit ourselves one to another, in the fear of God, there is a reason for it. That does not mean we are afraid of God, but it means we have got to come to a knowledge and understanding of what God’s will is for us, as a body of people, and how we are going to conduct ourselves in order that you and I may act in a way that pleases God. As the apostle Paul went ahead here, we need to realize that at the time these epistles were written, various nations, and various races of people had developed many cultural styles of how males and females are treated in society, both in their social and religious, as well as in the home environment. When we look back into the Genesis story where God called Abraham, and if we will study Genesis carefully, and study the person of Abraham as a man, and Sarah as his wife, you and I cannot help but see the exampleship that god wanted to exemplify; both in those two individuals, as well as in their offspring after them, that down through time this nation of people that would be begotten of them might totally characterize a way of life, and a way of conduct that no other society about them could even touch. God called them to be a light. A light is always something, that when it shines, it illuminates the dark areas.
THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT IS NOT OF GOD
It is all in the devil’s plan, but this feminist movement that we have in this nation, is now covering the world, and all of that has been brought about here in the 20th century, all because somewhere ancient cultures, social and racial backgrounds have had a long lingering affect on individuals, how they have been oppressed, secluded, and debased. Yet the gospel of Christ has been accessible to the Gentile world for almost 2000 years, and it shows mankind the way out of all his dark cultures and uncultivated traditions and behavior. It was Paul’s desire that the thing he saw, and that what he related in this letter form, could be understood by the individual person, who would allow God to apply it and cultivate it, for man and woman’s well being. We will never be any happier than the measure we allow God to cultivate his word in us. We can boast as a Methodist and never be a bit happy when it comes to certain areas of our life, or any other thing. We can come to church, and how true it is many times, we can misbehave ourselves through the week, in our homes with each other, and around our children we can fuss and quarrel, scream and yell, slam the door, break a dish, go off into the bedroom, not speak, but when Saturday night comes, we take a bath, and use nice perfumed soap, because we want to come to the house of God smelling clean and looking clean. We put on the best clothes we have in the wardrobe, we come and sit together and want to be recognized as a child of God. Well nobody is going to take a thing away from us, in coming like that. But many times it is what we have lived through the week that proves to God whether He has had His way in anything or not. Now the word will plainly tell us in no uncertain terms, that the church house is not where we come, just to show off our Christian experience. It has got to work at home, it has got to work where we work, it has got to work as we walk the sidewalks; regardless of whether we are in a dirty suit of work clothes, or in our best Sears suit. It has got to be what is in here, in our sprit, and whatever is in here is no better than what we are at home. When Paul wrote this, he knew good and well that he was writing to Gentiles, whose lifestyle in their former days could have catered to many unseemingly behaviors. So let us let him talk, and let us let him get inside of us. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, (Notice what he adds to it) as unto the Lord.” Do you know, we have a lot of modern feminists today, that are sitting in a church house somewhere being looked upon as Christians, but I want you to know, they do not know one thing about what this scripture means. They have no intention of honoring their husband. Now when we read these, we need to understand that when Paul said, “Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord,” that the husband is supposed to be a child of God, and the wife is also to be a child of God, regardless of what the feminist movement is talking about. They are going to spend an endless eternity in hell, burning, suffering the anguishes of all that they have demonstrated for. They would not want you to tell them that, for they are so naive to interpret and translate a bible that will not mention the sex term, masculine term of God the Creator. They want to call God an It, or a thing, or a that, but we know God always has addressed Himself in the masculine. What did Paul mean, submitting yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord? Well this means, that God ordained that man should be the head of the home, and young men, listen to me, that still applies in 1988. I do not care if you were born 28 years ago, there are things we have got to learn from this book. I have seen young men, that have misinterpreted the Bible; they are selfish, independent, they think that a woman is good for nothing but to shine their shoes, bring them a drink of water, do this and do that, all because the Bible says God made her to be a helpmate, and made her for man, not man for the woman. I have seen men that think like that, and when they get a public place, they like to stick their chest out and let society know. Hey, I have this female under my thumb. Any man who takes that mental attitude about his wife, is one day going to face his Creator and his Creator is going to say, Man, you painted the wrong picture. Now if you will listen carefully to me, this is all exemplified in the old testament as well as the new, and we want to bring it out. Up in the state of, (I won’t mention the state,) I heard the message preached by a young man a few years ago, a man whose name became frequently mentioned every time I went to Canada. He took the many times that Bro. William Branham talked about modern women running things, and how she dressed and this and that, and took the attitude, Well, the message is really telling women where to get off. Therefore many times in his preaching, he is heard expressing words that are so derogatory, to let the world know, my wife had better do what I tell her to do. If it was pouring down rain, and I told her to go sweep the mud off the sidewalk, she better do it. Now young man, you are interpreting the word of God wrong when you talk like that. Notice, it says, as unto the Lord. Does God ever ask you to do such a low down dirty thing? Now you think seriously. God will not ask you, as a young man, to do a bit more than you in your spiritual makeup, have capability to do, to fulfill His will. God is not a God that puts you under His thumb and then likes to put pressure on you just to torture you. One thing sure, God is not a God that goes out here and tries to humiliate you, and make a public display of you like that. Let us begin to see how God does look at us, as a child of His. If I can see that, then how do I want Him to treat me? Do I want Him to tell me, on a sub zero night, to get up and go shovel snow? Is that your God? You know it isn’t.. Then why do we interpret His word that we are to pass that kind of logic on to our companion, to prove that she is subject to me? God knew what He was doing when He created the woman. Just because she fell in her test, does not mean that God made man to use and abuse her, humiliate her, and make a public example out of her, so that he could walk through society with his chest stuck out, I’ve got things under control. That young man preached that way for quite a while, and he was going strong, but now I do not hear of him at all. His wife left him. No woman has to take that kind of public humiliation and torture. Especially from a child of God. All of that is carnality, and I will have to say, most of it is Satan oriented. The young man was totally ignorant of the word of God. He did not know how to preach truth, to really help people, rather than turn the picture around and create a social condition to torture individuals. Now, let us turn the thing around and come back to what Paul was talking about; Submitting yourselves to your own husbands. We do know when Eve did in the garden, what she did, God took away from her all her feminine offspring through the centuries of time, that co-equal right to determine what was going to be done on this earth, or what was not going to be done on this earth. Therefore I ask you to try to look at this in the same light I am looking at it here in the scripture. If we can let God create the right kind of picture in us, it is then and then alone, we will begin to have the kind of peace that is a lasting peace, no matter what the world or anyone else says. When you go to bed at night and know, I have done my best to do the will of God today, no matter if the whole world wants to yell and scream at you, you can still go to sleep with peace in your mind. The real truth is, you are not here to please the world. You are here to live as an example to the world. They can yell and scream and fuss and fight in their homes, all they want to, but it is up to you and me to show the world there is a peace that passes all human understanding, that cannot be bought with money. First off, the man that is a Christian and the woman that is a Christian, can get a true balanced picture of how God looks at them, and how He loved them. He knew me in my stubborn self-willed way, when I did not want to read too much of the Bible. To me now, it is the most precious book in the world; but He had to forgive me and take away my stubborn attitude toward that, to make it so. Now I realize that however I want God to treat me, that is how I have to learn to treat the members of my household, and it is also how I have to be able to look at you as my brothers and sisters in the family of God. When it says, Wives submit, this is absolutely talking about submitting things that sooner or later she has to realize, that is man’s duty, his responsibility, it would do me well to keep my ideas out of it. I have told this before. The people are dead now, both of them, my uncle and my aunt. But I used to have an aunt and uncle, when Sunday came, she could put on her best clothes, and put her beautiful hat on, and go in and sit down in the church, and she could make people think she was a wonderful, dedicated woman of God. But when she left that church door, that was a woman that sooner or later, before the day was over, was going to tell her husband how certain things had to be done, if there was going to be peace in the house. He could not buy a cow, except she had to approve it. He could not even cut hay, except that she might say, Now honey, you ought to plow that corn today, the weeds are getting bad. She looked out the window and told him how the farm ought to be run. I’ll never forget, we were there visiting one Sunday afternoon years ago, I was just a little fellow at the time, but something was said in the house, where my dad and mom were communicating with them, that struck her wrong. They had two children, a son and daughter, and shortly I heard my cousin, as she came running out to her brother, and related something in a quiet voice, to him, Don’t go in the house, mommy has gone into the bedroom. After a while, my sister and I decided we would go in. I heard my uncle telling my dad, that is just the way she is. She is in the bedroom pouting about something. So we got ready and left. Just before WW 2 started, my uncle decided to go into the lumber business. When he did, she couldn’t follow him to the woods. He started out with an old Model A truck, cutting timber, buying trees and hauling logs. This big timber outfit here today, that Tri-City deal, is run by his son and son-in-law and nephew. I can use that as an example to illustrate something to you. They are dead now, but I learned that in all probability, in his older days, he had more peace of mind when he was in the woods, or driving the log truck, than he ever did have trying to farm to please her. Things like this ought never to be. I have just used that as an illustration. If a man is going to farm, there are some things his wife ought to realize, and leave it to him. It is his hands that are going to get the callouses. The bible says that a woman is to be the keeper of the home. No that don’t mean she is to put the roof on it; nor that she is to do the necessary repairs, but she does have her place, you can read this in Proverbs. If inside that home she wants to paint the kitchen green, that should be her business. I hope you get the picture. If a woman is going to be submitting to man, in one sense of the word, then the man has got to realize, there are certain areas of that home life, if it is going to be compatible, peaceful relationship, there definitely should be certain things that the man turns over to the woman and leaves to her to do them, or at least to supervise.
MAN’S RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE CHRISTIAN HOME
However the man wants God to bless his life, and deal in his life, he has got to be willing to transfer that kind of attitude to the companion of his household. If he likes to abuse, if he likes to argue, God will never argue with you, but He will sure let you go through days of loneliness, that He will not talk to you. It usually means we are not still enough to listen to Him. You will never show me anywhere in the bible where it says God argues with us. He will counsel with you; and if God ever yells at you it is because you have been too self willed to listen, and keep our senses tuned in with Him. Then sometimes He has to yell to us through a condition of some kind, or even by an audible voice, if He has to, to get out attention. However, if the man himself does not know how to submit to God, and let God direct his life, and correct his life, so that his life can grow, and increase into a more Godlike image and attitude, then many times that man is going to be void of knowing how to require a woman to be submissive to him. He will translate and transpose it all in the carnal respect. Just because the bible says, Wives submit yourselves to your husband, that does not mean that he should get up yelling, roaring, bellowing, and stomp about the house. Some grew up in life thinking that was part of life, because that is part of the old person you are before redemption, and if somewhere we don’t learn that the Lord wants to get control of that old person, we miss the whole plan, for that is the part that we must allow to be put to death. But many times, when God starts crucifying that, we just simply will not turn loose. We refuse to die to that part of ourselves. Let us go on, and see what Paul says further here. “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church.” We are all Christians sitting here, and we are all supposed to begin to see ourselves collectively as the body of Christ, taking on the feminine image, which is the Church, which one day is going to be His wife. If the Church herself, taking on the feminine characteristic, is to be subject to Christ, then that tells me every male person within the body of Christ is going to have to learn first how he is to be submissive to Christ. Do you think God is going to let me hold an reserve certain areas of my life and be belligerent and stubborn toward my wife, and speak derogatory things to her in public? Things that make her feel little? Is that how Christ talks to you and me? However we want Christ to deal with us in public, then sooner or later that is how we have to begin to see ourselves in our home relationship. I know some people would say, Now that is none of your business, so let me say this, I will never come into your home and snoop around. But I will say also, if Paul wrote this, he was writing it to shock every mental mind and make that person realize, many times the reason things cannot go a bit better in the home, and have peace, is because somewhere one of them falls way short of how they see Christ as their head, and how they are submissive to him. Paul was writing this, because he knew it has got to be in the Christian home, that the Christian life is an example to the neighborhood. The neighbors may see you getting in a car and driving a few miles to a church house on Sunday, but sooner or later, our neighbors are going to find out just exactly how we live throughout the week, and they will read us according to how they see us in the neighborhood, or socially conducting ourselves in society. It says here, for the husband is the head of the wife, but do not stop it there. Even as Christ is the head of the church, goes with it. We have to realize that Jesus Christ is our head. Whatever kind of an image I want people to read in me, in my home life and in my married life, they are going to read me no better than what I am willing for Christ to be the one that controls my conduct, my behavior and such like. It has got to start there for every true child of God. Suppose we did get off on a wrong foot, in our younger life. Maybe our environment did affect us, but does that mean that somewhere there is not an area of our life that Jesus died for? When He hung on the cross and died for you and me, He not only died to cleanse us of our sins, but the final objective is that the Holy Ghost might be permitted to come inside of us, dwell in us, that sooner or later, as we walk with Him, and learn of Him, we learn of the areas of our inner person that is contrary to the will of God. When He sees that there is a certain portion of self will in us, even though we allow Him to be the head of all the other areas of our life, He may just let us live with the torment that comes to us as a result of failing to yield to Him in that one particular area. If that is the case, then there is something that haunts me, and just keep me unhappy. That is why living in peace has got to be knowing that Christ is the head that can control us in every area of our social and personal life. Then as we have our fellowship, our relations in social affairs and such like, sooner or later people will begin to read us in that like manner. For as Christ is the head of the total church, then we have got to realize that He has to be the head of every individual. It is not man going up and down the aisle and saying, I am the head of the home. My wife does what I tell her. I read a book not too long ago, that was sent to me by a certain preacher. I was asked to read the book and comment on it, so I will not mention the name or anything. But you would be surprised at how preachers over the country, through the years, have grown up with this attitude, simply because they read in the scriptures, “Wives submit yourselves unto your husbands.” Many times they will use a carnal, even immoral illustration to explain to people. When a preacher will say this, ‘my Bible tells me that my wife is supposed to do anything I tell her to do, (and this one referred to it like this,) so if I told her to go out and have relationship with another man, she is supposed to do so. You know good and well that a man that talks like that is not talking with God. Christ is not his head. Christ never has talked to any man like that. A man being the head will never be a bit better head in the home than the head he has got can control his motive. I ask all of you to think seriously about what I am saying. As long as a man in his home wants his wife to be subject and he can argue and fuss with her, but yet there are areas of his own thinking, he shuts off from the Lord, that man is going to live a lot of unhappy days, usually blaming it on someone else. Blaming it on the wife instead of blaming it on himself. A good head needs a good set of shoulders to be anchored to. Paul taught this, “Even as Christ is the head of the church, and He is the Saviour of the body,” but we notice here, in another illustration that he breaks that down to better clarify what he is saying, so notice the next verse. “Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.” If you and I are to grow and literally be spiritual individual beings, both man and woman, so that God can lead our respective lives and be pleased with us, we will never be a bit more spiritual than what we, as a person, man or woman, are allowing Him to be the head of our conduct, our behavior and such like. This is why when we were scattered in denominationalism, it was hard for me to see that Christ was the head of all of that. He never was the organizer of a denomination. In fact, a denomination is the opposite of the church where Christ is the head. A denomination is a bunch of people that have had an experience, where a certain measure of the grace of God has been extended, but they as individuals have never learned what utter submissiveness is. Therefore, Satan can bring along this organized, fundamental framework and hold them right there, and they are never allowed to grow a bit more into a spiritual image, where Christ is in complete control of all their life and conduct. No wonder the PTL has hit hard times and is on the rocks. Christ has never been the head of such a display. If Christ is not the head of Disneyland, then you can rest assured he is not the head of Heritageland, or whatever they call the place. The church never needs a place to retreat to, down here. The apostolic church didn’t have a place to retreat to. Most of the time, sooner or later, they were led to the arenas, and fed to the wild animals. It had to be God in control of the lives of those families back then, that had come out of that pagan, devil worshiping society, that kept them from turning back. When we read of the countless, untold thousands of human lives that were affected, where whole families were arrested, children, husbands and wives, and fed to the lions, we know they had something inside of them that was too precious to renounce. Just imagine, there was John and there was Mary, they had always fussed and fought, never could get along, yet they were supposed to be Christians. The Romans came and arrested them, and I can just see them as they are led off down the street to the jail. John says to Mary, if you had kept your mouth shut we wouldn’t be going this way. You are always opening your mouth when you aren’t supposed to. There they went, to the arena, fussing and yelling at each other. I told you to shut up. Oh you devil you, why don’t you get out of my way. That is how a lot of people conduct themselves. If that was the picture then, I have my doubts whether the whole family would have went. But I can see that husband embracing his companion and those little ones, as they strung along the way, standing there in the arena, looking across those grounds at those cages full of hungry beasts, and saying, Don’t worry honey; Just a few more minutes and it will all be over, and we will be in paradise. What a love! Something had really bonded them together. Something had really blended them into something that could make them walk willingly to the arena and die, with such a grace of God bestowed upon them. They had learned something, and something had been cultivated int them. For it is an absolute fact, the rest of the world in that first age of Christendom could not understand why those early Christians were such a close knit, bonded together, group of people. It is because the grace of God had done something in their lives, and they knew it was real. Jesus Christ had become the head of them all, and they had experienced something that had given them peace, and a love for each other that they had never known or experienced when they were still pagans. It is a known fact, secular history writes a pretty dismal picture of social life in many ancient empires. It tells many times how women were treated in the social structure. Therefore you cannot say those dedicated Christians learned what they knew while they were pagans. They learned that after becoming Christians. For Christ truly was their head, therefore the love of God was permitted to cultivate a human love. If a man does not first have human love for the companion of his life, he will never know very much of anything about the love of God. When man has lost the human side of everything, how to live and act and conduct himself, how can he accept and cultivate a greater love? What does the scripture say? Love thinketh no ill. Love, the love of God, does not envy, is not jealous, is not easily provoked, is not puffed up. When you see a person that almost anything can irk them, and you watch them, how they are ready to explode, it is because they do not have much human love. It has never been cultivated. They have developed a quick temper, ready to explode right in a moment’s notice. Brothers and sisters, we are living in a time, all of this can be changed. We have got to learn where it lays, where it is coming from, and how the overcoming grace of God can be obtained. “Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.” When we can read this in the light that it is written in, and when every man can read and learn how Christ has got to be his head, that means when you get up of a morning, that little wife of yours has got to be just as sweet then as the day you went with her. Do not go to work, and try to witness for the Lord, and talk about how many others are not in truth, if you cannot live it at home. Jesus Christ has got to first be my head, before I try to instruct others. When Christ becomes my head, and I can begin to see myself and humanity as Christ sees me, it is only then that I am even in a position to pass on anything. I hope you get my point. Being saved 20 years ago is one thing, but a lot of times it can be that we have spent 20 years staying right where we were. We have not grown one bit, nor learned one thing. We have learned in the mind, a lot of things, but when we do that, that is where knowledge puffeth up. But the love of God through that knowledge has never been allowed to become a motivation for us. We only see things as we see it through the knowledge, not through the love of God. Now, verse 25. This comes back to how the man is to look upon the woman. “Husband, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church.” With a true experience we can see how He really loved the church, why He was willing to hang on the cross in humiliation, before a religious world. Not a pagan world, but before a religious world of Jewish people that should have known the truth but didn’t. Jesus, being the person He was, knew by His own natural thinking that the heavenly Father had ordained that one day He would be the head of a people that had been redeemed unto God, through the shedding of His blood, and the giving of that Spirit. Therefore as Jesus knew He would be the head of that, He was willing to become the Saviour, the purchasing means by how you and I could be part of Him. Yes, when we are willing to submit our stubbornness, our self will, and the way we see things, and begin to let Him cultivate within us a mind that allows us to see things the way he wants us to see them, you young men will stop this thing of waiting until you are in public to say derogatory things about your mate. You will not say them at all. The sooner you learn to stop it, the better off you will be. That is how much quicker the Lord will stop letting you be ashamed. If you do not learn He is to be your head, then one of these days, right when you are least expecting it, He will let you do or say something that will make yourself a shameful spectacle, right before the very people you desire to be a testimony to. Because we have reserved the testimony we should be bearing. For some reason or other we have let people see how really Unchristlike we can be at times.
REAPING WHAT YOU SOW
I will never forget, one time after I came out of the army, the first winter, there used to be a furniture factory over here by the name of Mengles. My brother-in-law and I got a job working there through the winter months, and one day there was a young fellow, at that time I was just growing up, with a Methodist background, and like I said, I did not spend much time reading the Bible, so certain things of the Bible, I was completely ignorant of. There was one young fellow, and in my mind I knew he went to a Pentecostal church. Up and down the aisles he went, always picking an argument with someone. One day he and another young fellow got into a very heated argument, and I am telling you, that argument got so strong, it looked like they could almost come to blows with each other. But after awhile something happened and the young fellow was told to go do something else. Well the guy he got into it with, came to me and said, Did you hear that? I said, “Yes.” Of course I did not know the Lord then, as I know Him now. I said, Well I don’t think there was much of Christ in it, and how true that is. Some people just like to show off to others how much they think they know. But in reality they do not have very much. Therefore, some get to this place, Bless God, I ain’t going to work where they cuss, where they smoke and tell dirty jokes. You do not own this world yet. That is why Paul taught in 1st Corinthians, and gave such a description. If any man be a fornicator and such, don’t even eat and keep company with him, but yet not all the fornicators and those of the world, because then you must needs go out of the world. Now when you condense that, it literally means, while you are in this world, there are places you are going to have to work where they are just as ornery and dirty and filthy as can be, but you do not have to let it irk you. This world is not yours, and while you are here you have got to make a living, but when you go into that place, do not think you are going to change it. You are not. If you go there with the attitude, I am going to keep my mouth shut, I am not going to say a thing, I have heard them stick their chest out, “Bless God I want them to know they are not supposed to curse, nor do this, nor that.” Then if they make life miserable for you, you have brought it upon yourself. But if you go in there and you make them think you don’t know anything, then when the time comes, God will let something be said if He want you to be a testimony and a light. He will do it in a way that when you do say something, sure somebody always may laugh about it, but sooner or later you can live with peace in yourself. “Therefore as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husband in every thing. Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it.” Now if He is my head, I have got to realize that He loved me. He loved me when I was an unlovable creature. It doesn’t matter what you have done in life. You hear people say some times, Well the Lord just can’t save me because I have done too much evil. That is nonsense; that is contrary to the word of God to talk like that. He saw us in our unlovely state; and He wants to show us His love by showing us He can do something for us while we are still in that condition, by remolding and reshaping our inner self. Because the ultimate end is that He might sanctify us, and this thing of sanctification is not something that is an instantaneous thing as it is brought out here, but it is a continuous working of the Holy Spirit, seeking to sanctify your attitude, your personality, your whole conduct, your behavior, how you look at things, and how you deal with things. Oh I grant you, sometimes we can be very impatient human beings when God first saves us. We can have a short fuse. But if He is allowed to be our head, sooner of later we are going to learn this thing of walking around with a short fuse is bad, for He is going to let it explode right in our own hand. You have heard of short fused minds. Well did you ever hear of a fellow lighting, a firecracker that had a short fuse, and he held it too long? He almost blew his thumb off. That is exactly what our human nature can do to our lives. I am thankful to God that He can save us from our old associates, the bad crowd we used to run around with; but are we allowing Him to save us from ourselves, that old character that flies off the handle too quick? You know, sometimes when we fly off the handle too quick, we say things, and our blood pressure goes up, and we let our minds turn upside down. It goes through an earthquake (so to speak) and we get ourselves so worked up, it takes two or three days before we come back down to earth. We cannot hardly live with ourselves. Do you know why I think that it? That is a human being with an uncontrolled spirit. What does it say in Proverbs about a man with an uncontrolled spirit? He is like a city without a wall. No defense. That is why many times it is better to get control of ourselves. A lot of our emotional, nervous, hysterical, conduct of society today, is strictly because mankind refuses to allow the gospel of Christ to penetrate his life, like it did those ancient pagans. It did such a transforming work in them, they could walk to the arena and die in each others arms, looking up. No wonder, as the spectators would sit in the bleachers, viewing the spectacle of torture, and humiliation, it was said, many times the spirit of God would hit the society and multitudes came flocking out of the bleachers to fill the ranks and die right with them. Why? They saw something in those people, they knew they had to have themselves. We, to the world, may not look like we are very much; but I am sure that as we are still here in this world that is becoming so mean and evil, and every kind of broken up life, somewhere the Lord wants to mold in us something that we can be a little spark of light.
THE CHURCH IS TO BE SPOTLESS
I want us to really understand this verse 26, as it deals with the whole body of believers. “That he might sanctify and cleanse it, (What? The Church. And since the growth of the work and grace of God that will cover centuries of time, we have to realize that sanctifying the Church has to have a continual application in every generation to make that generation of people respond, react, and take on that measure of the likeness of Jesus, that is applicable for that hour.) With the washing of water by the word.” We are in the hour when the Church is to return back to the original image and likeness, and I am convinced today that here is where the sanctifying, finishing work of God is to finish its purpose. For the end objective is expressed in verse 27, “That He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing: but that it should be holy and without blemish.” When we think of being spotless, without wrinkle or blemish, that takes it right back to the home, for that is right where our life has really got to take on something that we live with every day. Many times, (and you know it is a fact) church people have lived through the week, having lived on the very edge of what could be shame. Then when Sunday morning comes, muster all of self together, to put a smile on, to come to church, and make it look like they are Christians. Brothers and Sisters; When it gets to the place where in our daily life, our week is lived by such uncultivated practices, we do not have peace in our minds. We do not have happiness. We are only trying to show people we have something that deep down inside, we do not have at all. Furthermore we are living in a time when the spirit of the world is bad continually. They do not want the gospel. They do not want a thing to do with the preacher. They do not want a thing to do with the Church. They want to live and do as they please. No wonder youth wants to experiment with dope and all this other junk. However I am convinced that God has some people on earth that are not attracted to these worldly devices. They find great pleasure in being submissive to the will of the Lord; believing that His headship over them will guide them into that perfection the Bible speaks of. We are certainly convinced by the scriptures, that Christ the head, will never steer his Church wrong. You can see what denominationalism has done, Satan was the head of that; but as God works within our lives today, He is working to perfect us; how we live at home, and how we conduct ourselves before our children, because the true Christian image, as it is exemplified in the home, will leave something that is impressionable upon the young minds of little children, as they go off to school and their minds have to be constantly exposed to all the images of stuff that is going on out there. No wonder there is such a battle for young people today, as they grow up in this perverted society of demon possessed human souls. If you fail as Christian parents, to teach your children what the true values of life really are, what right do you have, to expect them to be decent and upright as they grow up into young adults, with the world as it is today? You will never experience true peace in your own lives, if you have to live every day knowing that you have failed to teach your children properly, and that it is now too late to start it. I hope you parents are listening to me; for I am sure you desire to have that peace in your lives, that comes only from obeying the word of God to the best of your ability to do so.
DO ALL – IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
We are not finished in Ephesians, but before we go on, I would like for us to go to the Colossian epistle, where Paul dealt with the same thought we have been looking at here in Ephesians. Paul had a great desire to see the whole family of God in unity, living in peace. Since we have used the setting in Ephesians, I want to go back to it and pick up, but we can read this and feed it into the message. We will go to Colossians 3, and read the 16th verse. As we read this, let us consider the depth to which it reaches. Every time we run into a situation in life that might in some way irk our flesh, whether a man or woman, as a child of God, and we find ourselves carried away by our carnal, explosive expressions, and find ourselves starting to speak in an Unchristlike way, accusing each other of things that are not even related to what we are angry about, then here is a verse of scripture that should check us. “And whatsoever ye do in word of deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Do you understand that? Let me clarify it for you. Every time we have a fuss, a quarrel, a feud, and we throw a dish, let’s do it in the name of the Lord. Do you think that is what Paul meant? You know that is not right. We can begin to see, when we really begin to look at the life we live here, that God does not make us a prisoner, and He does not ask us to live a life that makes us miserable. He has provided a remedy. His love in us is the remedy. It is just a matter of knowing how to let it be applied. Let us read the entire verse now. “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” Bless God, I told her off this morning. I let her know what is what. Most of the time when this kind of situation arises about our life, we have failed to give one thought to the fact that the Lord was looking on, and that He heard every word that was uttered. We sometimes make Him so far away from us, and just simply shut him out of the occasion, not allowing Him to talk to us. The truth is, that we are usually making too much racket for him to even be able to speak to us, but we ought to take heed to this verse. We are picking up back in Ephesians now, right where we left off. I just wanted ti insert that one verse at this particular point in the message, to emphasize what Paul was actually getting at when he said, Wives be subject to your husbands as unto the Lord. We must realize that no man has any right to be the head of anything, if Jesus is not his head. Life is a two way street, and we know these scriptures were not written just for the first century of Christendom. They are written for eery century of Christendom, because the Church is made up of generations of people. We believe we are living in the endtime, and right now on earth, is a living generation of people that no doubt is going to be dealt with by God, with everything He sees necessary to make us measure up to His will and purpose. As this age closes out, and God writes the last verses to the last chapter of church history, may there be a people go out of this world in the rapture, that the world will have to say, Those people have been with Jesus. Yes He is literally going to present that people to Himself, them having neither spot, wrinkle, nor blemish. Notice how Paul came right back to verse 28, to re-emphasize his thought. When we come to the conclusion of this message, we will better understand what He was really talking about, so notice now, “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.” Brothers and Sisters: No human man can be any more in Christ, than what he is willing for Christ to be his head. He may get aggravated, he may want to say things like, Well you are always doing this, and always doing that, but God is not going to help that helpmate be a bit more subject to us, than we are unto Him. This thing has got to be a complete submission to Him, for He does not need perfection. It is you and I that need it. When a man loves himself, if you have ever noticed, he likes for everything to go his way. He looks for the easy way in life, but if he wants God to make life easy for him, then he had better be willing to let it be shared the other way. “He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church.” The Church is not made up of just women, it is made up of both men and women, so think about this, For no man every yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and so forth. “For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” Therefore however we want the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our head, to love us, that same kind of love and expression and attitude must be passed right on, or somewhere the head of it all, which is Christ, is not going to be in parts of our Christian life, because we are going to find that HE is shut out. After saying, “For we are members of his body, and of his flesh, and of his bones,” Paul goes all the way back to Genesis 2:24, to a statement made by Adam, saying, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” This is a two way street; it has been said over and over, but many times it has not been that way. When two young people meet each other, and they begin to fall in love with each other, and begin to see that that is the person I want to live the rest of my life with; in the eyes of God, and for the reason of all godly principles for their own particular sake, if they want God to make their union a happy peaceful union in their home, that they are going to establish, there comes a time when they will have to be weaned from Daddy and Mommy. That goes for Dad. That goes for Mom. That goes for daughter, and for son. More and more, marriages hit hard rocks simply because a daughter cannot leave Mom, or a son cannot leave Pop. In your home, if it is going to have one head, and Christ is the center of that, you cannot have a lot of outside influence. Now I might be saying things that do not sound good to some of you, but truth is truth anyhow. When I got married, I said I would treat my Daddy as my Daddy, and my mother as my mother, but the day they stick their head in, and start telling son how things ought to be, that is when my daddy, or my mother will have to go their own way and let me go mine. It is a two way street, this life we live. Not just taking from someone else all the time, to fulfill selfish desires, but giving in return, for the happiness of others; especially your chosen mate. It is one thing to grow up under the influence of your Daddy and Mother, and to take their good exampleship and apply those things to your life, where they are basic and helpful; but when daughter is always running to Mommy, and son is always running to Daddy, trying to pull outside influence into their problems; there is going to be more problems. Do you agree or disagree? Think about it. If Christ is going to be the head of your marriage, it cannot have two heads, or three heads. Of course, if you want to live for the world, then anything can come about. We all know that the world is in a bad shape, and I believe we will all agree that things out there cannot get any better, until Jesus comes back to earth to rule. That is when the world will have peace. Young people today are growing up in this world, never to learn a thing in school, of what marriage is all about, and what it incorporates, and what it requires from each one in order to have a happy home. The schools have thrown the Bible out. They have taught sociology, psychology, and philosophy, but as far as I am concerned, the only psychology that is worth any time, is written in the Bible. If you will read the book of Ecclesiastes, and the book of Proverbs, you will learn all the sociology and psychology you will ever need to know. If you can let Christ apply every verse, and can have its reasonable application and respect, it will rid your mind of a lot of unnecessary attitudes and Unchristlike behavior. That is why it is written there. You will find in the book of Ecclesiastes where it many times, refers to the wise preacher. Written in there is words of wisdom, for God is concerned about our daily life. I have said this over and over, Whatever condition the Gentile world was in when the gospel came, it was not a healthy state. But in one century of time, God’s grace, through the application of this gospel, reached down into that sinful world, and picked up a people, and so changed their lives, that those people were willing to die for what they had received. They left such a testimony that it literally affected the future of all generations to come. In fact, it stemmed the tide of Satan. It shut the door to a lot of his social invasions. It stabilized the home. It did for humanity, what no other religion had ever done. It brought peace to human beings that never thought such a thing could be possible. But now that we live in the time when the spirit of God is withdrawing, we see human beings, with their minds and spirits again being invaded by the same kind of spirits, which are affecting their lives, and their behavior, and thereby wrecking their lives. No wonder homes are on the rocks. It is not wonder that the courts of the land no longer look upon marriage as a sacred institution sanctioned by God. Modern mankind is living worse than animals. Modern man is a creature you can no longer trust, because he has never learned what truth is. He does not know how to be obedient. That is why they want to go to school now, and study sociology, psychology, or philosophy. A philosophy isn’t worth the paper it is printed on, if it does not help stabilize a human soul in the way that anchors him to God. God is never glorified in human beings constantly bickering and fussing. Man, at his best, is an enemy of God, until the grace of God comes into his life. Some of you young men may read my illustrations wrong, and get the idea that a wife is not supposed to do anything for a man, but if you will listen to the way I mean it, and not let the devil tell you another way, then you will know exactly what Paul is talking about. Any true woman that has a desire to please her husband and please Christ, is never going to be selfish and greedy and use a man just to get hold of every dollar he has. A woman who lives like that isn’t worth the salt that goes into her bread. We have a lot of young girls that go to college today, that want to make money, for want of huge wardrobes, and it is a fact, time has brought many young girls into this world that will use a young boy to get a lot of promises, you give me this, and give me that, if you want a happy home. It takes two to make a happy home. Any man that would marry a woman that is out to take him for every penny he is worth, is just asking for trouble in life. When we become a child of God, we are to begin to lose a lot of our old carnal ways we were brought up in life with. You hear people say, Well I just wasn’t brought up that way. Yes, but if Christ ever has his way in you, it will change those ways. I have never asked my wife to do something to help me, that she was not willing to do. When I used to farm for a living, she left her wash many times, to get in a car and drive to get parts for me when I would have a breakdown in the field. I have had her riding a corn planter, and when the middle of the day, or evening came and we were done, all you could see was the white of her eyes and white of her teeth, she had that much dust on her. I never screamed at her, that she had to ride the corn planter, she rode it because I had no one else to help me, and she rode it gladly. Regardless of what your occupation in life may be, whether you live in the city or in the country, you will never be a bit happier in Christ than what you as a man or woman, are willing to share and bear the responsibilities of life together. Any time one is only using the other just for their own benefit, somewhere Christ is left out in something. “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Now brothers and sisters, when you step out and accept the responsibility of being a companion to the opposite sex in life, and you ask God to help you as you walk down the pathway of life together, (I am talking about those that are in the Lord.) There is no room in your marriage for selfishness, and there is no home that can have two human heads. Somewhere the peace of God will be shut out if that is the case. It is wonderful to be good to daddy and mommy and respect them for what they are. But daughter, when you step out of Mommy’s household, you tie yourself to an obligation to be submissive as you see it in the Lord. That doesn’t mean you can’t go see Mommy. And son, that doesn’t mean you can’t go see Daddy. But every time you have a little problem that arises, and it is Daddy this, and Daddy that, and Mommy this, and Mommy that, you can rest assured the Lord is not going to be there. He is going to watch you because He sees that you shut your mind away from the information that is God that shows how that whole thing can be corrected. Personal help is one thing. But many times we are asking the Lord to help us, when He sees we are already going the wrong way with it. God’s word worked for people in the first century, so it has got to work in this century if we abide by it. The only thing is, sometimes it is hard on our flesh to get it under control. I grant you, if we are going to live for the devil and we are going to let the devil rule our nature and build within us selfishness and greed, and make us hard headed and stubborn, then we are going to go down the pathway of life with a lot of hardships, having problems, crying and getting sick. Well why does it have to be this way? It is the devil driving us. It is the devils business to disturb us, one way or the other. But sooner or later, if we are willing to let the Lord have his way in our life, He will truly help us overcome the devil’s devices. He will let certain conditions prevail for awhile, because He wants us to know as we become His child, you did not learn it all the day you repented. There are things we learn about how to be submissive to the Lord, and then it is through that knowledge of how to submit unto the Lord, to let him correct or help us, we begin to learn how to really be a head of something, and we begin to really be submissive to a head, which is pleasing to God. Paul said, This is a great mystery, but he did not mean he was talking about something you could never understand. He was using the natural relationship between husband and wife in the Lord, as to how they together are to see the Church collectively in relationship to Christ, for He is the head. “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” Reverencing him is respecting him, and submitting to him because of that respect, because in so doing, that is the only way she is ever going to please the Lord, and get his help and comfort in her own life.
WHY CHILDREN DO OR DO NOT OBEY THEIR PARENTS
Now we will look at Paul’s instructions to the children of Christian home. “Children obey your parents in the Lord.” If a child born into a home, only lives to see Mom and Dad quarreling, fussing and feuding, always at odds, you rest assured, you may scold a child, you may yell, get out of here you little devil, or why don’t you shut up. Leave me alone, and all of that, but after awhile we are molding a psychological reaction in that child; it is not going to mold a stable balance of how that child is to see adulthood. That child may grow up in life very impatient. Do you know why? Because he or she learned it all from Daddy’s and Mommy’s conduct. Let me use an illustration. You hear it said, spare the rod and spoil the child. That has to be rightly interpreted. When a child sees a rod hanging on a wall, and it is used more times than it feels the arm of love from mom and dad, do you know what they think? They think life is just one big sad episode. Nothing is there to make it happy. It grows up to think that life is something you fear every day. From the time the sun comes up, to the time the sun goes down, nothing happens through the day to make you feel happy. A child may be disobedient, but when we get so carried away, and so impatient, trying to show that child some kind of discipline, so that we show an angry hatred, insomuch that they see fire coming out of our eyes, and they hear wrong words from our lips, then let’s ask ourselves, Suppose the Lord was constantly yelling at us, You little devils down there! Why don’t you shut up! Would you want God to talk to you like that every time you went into the bedroom the pray? I hardly think so. We are told from the word of God that He is a God that will hear us, and it is said that He knows our every need, and that He knows before we come to ask Him. When it says that we must do certain things in the fear of God, that does not mean you are afraid of God, that He is going to let an avalanche fall on you, because the Bible says, Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth and scourgeth every son. When God chastens, He knows exactly how to correct, and some things are very gentle. God wants us to know that He can be a gentle God even though He is correcting us or admonishing us. But if we become self willed and stubborn toward Him in certain things, then He can be a God that can minister certain kinds of discipline for our benefit; but He will never do it in a fit of rage. Then if we want GOD to help us as parents in our bringing children up, we will not be accepting every bit of this modern philosophy in schools and colleges, but it is knowing exactly how to let the spirit of God, and the word of God, put in us a knowledge that becomes an experience, so we know how to correct a child. If a child is screamed and yelled at from sun up to sun down, how do you expect that child to ever know what love can be? Nine times out of ten, that child will grow up to be hot headed and explosive just like that. Then when they have a child, they will pass on to it that same attitude. They will never know what patience is, and a lot of people go through life never knowing how to be very gentle. Except for the grace of God, we could never get as far along in life as we do. Many times we have made a wreck of a lot of things in life, by cultivating an attitude of self will. But if we want God to help us as we father and mother a child into this world, we must remember that the little thing has a mind that embraces an area of intelligence, and it is going to learn; and when it learns, it has to learn from a daddy and mother that can show a love and yet can show a discipline in a way that God is in. That is why we see a lot of things in this world going all to pieces. When this world accepted this modern philosophy, we don’t need God, we don’t need His word; they became like a stick of wood on the sea of time, to be taken in by every tide and go out with every tide. It is hard to tell where they will wind up, and upon whose shore, for they are just like a piece of driftwood. It is true, the child of the world now is void of being taught anything that points him to God. But a child that is born in a home where Dad and Mom are supposed to be Christians, there are resources available for every one, from God, to help that young man and woman know how to deal with that child. I am not telling you that every one of your children are going to become Christians. The Bible does not give you that kind of guarantee. But the bible does show you yourself, how to do certain things, and if you will do them that way, God will keep your mind from a lot of problems that other people have to live with. You have heard me say before, my dad hardly ever did whip me; but when he did whip me, I knew I had been whipped. Most of the time all he would have to do was say Junior! Don’t do that! But if he ever saw it necessary, and he took me by the ear, I knew I had pushed too far. These modern day psychologists would say, Oh, he could hurt your inner ear drum. Do you know why we have a lot of people that talk like that today? Because they themselves, have no self control. My Dad knew how far to twist my ear. He twisted just enough to make me follow. Then, if what he did, made me go into the bedroom and cry a little while, he didn’t let me go all day thinking he did not love me any more. After a while he would come in there, if I didn’t come out first, and would say, Now come here. In other words, after letting you do your little spell of crying, he would not let you pout all day about it. He would be coming to look you up and say, Now come here, and he would sit me on his knee and let me know he loved me. Twisting my ear did hurt; but I will tell you what would hurt worse, is for him to let me go all day, or all week, and never say, Junior, I love you. When he got through sitting me on his knee and saying, Junior I love you, my hurt feelings left me. You need to let your children know that they mean everything to you. It is God’s law that when that little baby is born into this world, it is utterly helpless; it is completely dependent upon daddy and mother for its earthly survival. It will only learn from whatever kind of environment it is brought up in. It is sad to say, but a lot of people today have lost the vision of what it is all about; and that is why we have a generation, and an element of educators that are trying to rewrite books, with this new brand of psychology and philosophy on how to raise a child. Christians do not need their books; it is all in the Bible. It is a sad thing that they have forgotten the Bible, the greatest source to anchor a human being, that has ever been. If children are taught what obeying is; it has its penalties, but it also has its rewards in life. Do you know, When a child grows up in life, and the home means much to it, no matter how they might like to go visit, and see things, home itself is a place they feel a security in and that kind of child will be less likely to be out here running the roads. On the other hand, if their home environment is such, that they feel just as secure out some place as they do at home, and home is only a stop off place to change a T shirt and jeans, and away they go again, you can rest assured, somewhere that child has missed something in life. Therefore Paul says to the children, “Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” This is a promise of God, He has a principle, and law, if you can learn it the right way; so notice what verse 4 says, “And ye father, provoke not your children to wrath.” A young man, with very little patience himself, can father a child into the world just like anyone else, but his own lack of self control will keep him from ever being able to set an example before that little child. Instead of setting an example for the little one, he will probably scream at it, and have it scared half to death, most of the time. There is one thing sure, if we as a Christian child of God do not learn how to have the fruit of God’s patience; it is a sure thing, the devil knows how to take our little offspring and drive us up a wall. The devil will see to it that all the peace that you could enjoy will be robbed from you and you will almost hate the day that little rascal was ever born. What a blessing it is though, when you can say, God help me to know how to be patient, and help me to know how to cradle this little infant in my arms and make it feel secure. When you see that little fellow doing something that you know is wrong, you do not have to yell, you can speak it in a way that will be just as effective. Don’t do that, should be sufficient most of the time, if you have trained the child properly from birth. Brothers and sisters: we are the only people in this world that has fool proof instructions on how to have peace of mind and peace in the home. There are millions of people today, spending a fortune looking for peace. Millions of families today would do anything in this world, if the whole family could just be gathered around the living room, and the whole family could see each other in peace. Instead of peace, every time they get together it is a riot, because they have been taken up in worldliness, and self will, and have not gotten to know the one who is able to give them that peace. It is like horses that have grown up in the wild and have just ran anywhere they wanted to. Some of them can never be broken to ride. You can make a dog food out of an animal like that; but who knows what to do with a human that acts like that? I have some other scriptures I want to get to, so bear with me a little bit. “And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” The same man wrote a similar verse over in Colossians, I did not read it, but it says, “Fathers provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged,” I wonder what Paul meant by that? Well he is absolutely talking about someone that is overly corrective and does not know how to control and discipline a child, and do it in a godly way. He yells at his children, and beats them half to death; and then walks away, and they can recuperate however they are able to. A person like that can wreck a child’s nervous system, and drive them to do something drastic, simply because life seems so hopeless. As I have already said, regardless of what correction is needed, your child needs some love shown to it afterward. God will never correct me or you, and let you go for six months without letting you know he loves you. Why should we go out here and tell the sinners of this world, God loves them, and He will forgive them all their evils, if we think for one minute that He is a God that would treat us like some people treat their children. God is either what we tell others He is, or He is not. But I know tonight, He is a God that wants you and I to be happy. He wants us to have happiness in our home. He wants us, when we face the work days of the week, to get up and go off to work with a peace of mind in our hearts, and when our children go off to school on Monday morning, they should go, having had an example set before them on how to conduct themselves with others. Furthermore you should say to the child, Honey you are going to face a lot of things in school today, but remember that daddy and mommy both love you. Some of what they try to teach you, will be opposite of what we have taught you; but do not raise a fuss with them; just hold to what you know already, and God will help you do what is right.
A LESSON ON GODLY CONDUCT
Brothers and Sisters: When they had prayer in the schools, and when the bible was a book that was respected, we did not have dope on the campus. No teacher nor principal would have allowed it. Ninety percent of moms and dads would have torn the community up to find the dirty rat that even brought such stuff around. But when there was no longer prayer in the schools, and the word of God was no longer a book to be respected, then God just walked away, so to speak, and said, Then I leave you to your own fate. Now our nation is eating it to the hilt. Does that mean we have to follow suit? I hardly think so. Turn with me to the 3rd chapter of 1st Peter. This epistle was written by another Jew, and we know according to the scriptures that Peter was a married man. Therefore as he is writing here, to the believers that are going to be influenced by this letter, he says, “Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands.” Notice the exampleship that Peter is speaking in reference of. He is talking to wives that are Christian women, but somewhere they have an unbelieving husband. “Be in subjection to your own husbands; that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.” The word conversation here, literally means your conduct and disciplined behavior. In other words, wives, being in subjection, is to respect your husbands. I have met women through the years, that I could tell by some of the things they talked about, that they were just about as worldly as worldly could be, before they came to know the Lord. But then when God did visit them, and gave them an experience in knowing Him in his plan of salvation, they became as contrary as a mule toward their husbands. Somehow or other they took the attitude that being a child of God justified them in going home to nag their husbands, like, “I wish you would go to church.” Instead of being kind and soft spoken, they began to use carnal talk, and fuss and nag, trying to do something for their husbands that only God can do. Brothers and sisters, any time a man or woman would look at married life in that respect, they are automatically inviting trouble. That is not the way the Lord dealt with you. In other words, just because God has saved you or me, that in no way puts us in a justified position to use carnal tactics on our unbelieving, un-cooperating mate. Not if we want the peace of God to be cultivated within the environment of our marriage. Through the years I actually observed women that were never at home long enough for their husbands to even think of them as a wife. Any woman who takes that kind of attitude, that the grace of God has put her in a position where she needs to go to the house of God every time the doors are opened is missing the true value of her salvation. She leaves that unbelieving husband, or vice versa, and many times they are just inviting trouble. Then they wonder, where is the peace that could be cultivated in this marriage? As Peter says, here, “While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.” That verse can literally be read like this, While they look upon your well disciplined conduct. The word conversation here, does not pertain just to what they say, it is about the kind of example they live, and display before that unbelieving husband. Regardless of how good-for-nothing an unbelieving husband may be, he still knows quite a bit about the way a Christian should conduct themselves, so if he has a wife that professes to be a Christian, and only acts like a Christian in church, and when church people come around, how is she ever going to bear any kind of testimony to her husband, that would make him even want what she has? The Bible is very clear on Christian conduct; therefore no one has an acceptable excuse for not living right. You could get a thousand different reasons from those who are coming up short; but the real truth about it is, if you are conducting yourself like the devil, it is because you are allowing the devil to influence and lead you, instead of the Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered rejection and death to set us free from the bondage of Satan. If we are saved and filled with the Spirit of the One that raised Jesus up from the grave, and seated Him on His own right hand of authority, we have within us the ability to overcome every onslaught of this evil adversary; so if we are not overcoming daily, it is because we are not submitting to our head. Think about it. I am not picking on any individual; I am merely relating to you the truth that I see laid out ever so clearly in the Bible. We are living in a world and in an evil society that is not getting to be one bit better, regardless of what some may think. It is filled with all kinds of greed, selfishness, and self will, and there is not an institution in the world that is capable of coping with the out-of-balance condition of it. Never in the history of the human race has man and woman been so selfish, and so individualistic motivated, many times finding it utterly impossible to reconcile themselves into any kind of compatible relationship of fellowship or marriage, or anything whatsoever. It is because our modern textbooks are no longer built around the image of the home as it used to be.
When I grew up and went to school, I noticed our little readers, there were always storied about father and mother, daughter and son. And the whole story was built around the cooperation and communion and such like that was to be understood to be that framework that held that home together. But today, as the spirit of Satan has definitely destroyed that type of image of the American home, so has went marriage and that communication thing that is so important to make it work. It goes to show that man is not born to seek that which is good. He is born with a disposition to think solely of himself. Even a lot of your modern psychiatrists will advise you so, saying, You have got to let off the pressure, but 90 percent of this pressure is self made. You could safely say, Every bit of it is self made, and then they want you to explode in public or explode in the home, explode before your children, and set a bad example. It is an absolute fact, a home that loses its image of how God should be reverenced and respected in the home, produces a family that knows nothing but to argue and fuss all the time, and when those children grow up, and establish a home of their own, this is the kind of example they pass on to their children. When you see your children having tantrums and throwing things, do not blame God; blame yourself. They probably learned all of that from you. We were not born with the ability to know what to do. The Gentile society that existed before the gospel of Christ, had very loose morals. You and I live this side of the Dark Ages and the Reformation, and some of us that are older, have seen the world as it existed 40 or 50 years ago, and we have seen the way it has gone in the last 25 or 30 years, so if time lasts, and the hour ever comes that all these older ones are dead and gone, and it is left up to this modern age of youth to be the next generation of spiritual leaders, a generation that has no concept of God, nor of decent principles, or anything, it will be a hell on earth. That is why we read in the scriptures that iniquity shall abound, and the love of many shall wax cold. Love is a fruit, an attribute. There is a human love, and there is a divine love, and we can never expect the divine love of God to be workable in our life, and to be fruitful if our human love is incapable of expressing itself in a family relationship. Living in peace is something we must cultivate; it does not just accidently happen.
WHAT ABOUT WOMAN’S ADORNING?
Let us go to 1st Peter. In verse 2, Peter, speaking of the example of a Christian woman before her husband, went right to something that has been ever so controversial down through the ages, (1 Pet. 3:3) saying, “Whose adorning.” This is to the Christian woman, concerning how she appears to her husband. Take the word adorning, and get your dictionary definition for it. It is putting on, or the taking on, or it is how one is presenting themselves in some kind of dress image. “Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning or plaiting the hair.” Many of your evangelic people in days gone by have interpreted that as being a sin for a woman to plait her hair, so let us take that route. We do not plait our hair. “And of wearing of gold.” I happen to know certain Churches of God, Nazarenes, Pilgrim Holiness, and other areas of Pentecost, that will not wear a wedding ring or gold watch, because of this verse. They will go out and get a cheap Timex that is chrome plated with a leather band, simply because they interpret this, that it is a sin to wear anything that is made of gold. Well let us take that route, and leave it that way. But here is where that revelation breaks down. “Or of putting on of apparel.” If you take the first two and literalize them, we will literalize the other one. She is not supposed to put on clothing either. Oh no, Bro. Jackson, that is not what that means. How do you know it is not? You do not literalize part of a verse like that, and symbolize the rest of it. I am going to tell you what Peter was talking about. Because it shows it in the other verses following. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of all kinds of hair styles. On Wednesday she has one style. On Friday when she goes to the store, she has another style. On Sunday to church, she has another style. Tuesday night she is meeting with the Ladies Aid Society, she has got another style. The social world we live in has fallen into that rut. You can hear it said, She is a woman of taste. Yes, but let us see what she is eating on. Styles, fads, fashions. Never content. Always trying to keep up with somebody else she thinks is getting in front of her. Somewhere this thing has to come to a middle of the road application. Some have got to where they do not even comb their hair; they let it hang like a wet horse’s tail. God let you have hair, but He never combs it for you, and He will never wash it for you. You will wash it yourself; that is your responsibility. It is also your responsibility to comb it. As a human being it is up to you to determine what you should look like. I am talking about women in Jesus Christ. When women begin to learn in the Lord what their goal is, and what kind of image they should have, to please God, they are going to settle down to some kind of hair style that they are comfortable with, and keep it. That does not mean she whacks it off like a man, where she can just run a brush through it, and off to work she goes. A woman who lives and thinks like that, does not even have the knowledge of God. Common sense should tell you, you do not serve God 20 years and never learn certain things of the scriptures, and how to apply them. I am not standing here to tell any woman what to do. That is the sad part of it, for there have been preachers that have preached the gospel as though it is all in a head of hair. If that is all it takes, Jesus died in vain. He did not die on the cross just so you could grow a head of hair. He died on the cross to pay the price to get us out of our terrible rut of sin and disobedience, and lawlessness. We are void and destitute of the knowledge of anything that it takes to please God, until Jesus becomes the Redeemer and reconciler of our spirits, back to God, then the Spirit of God takes over, and begins to mold in us an image that pleases Him, if we have truly surrendered to Him. Realizing that we are bought with a price, the shed blood of our blessed Saviour, we need to ask our heavenly Father to reveal to us, what we need to do to please Him. The wearing of gold, what does this boil down to? Is Peter actually saying, Oh no, you never put on any gold? That is not what he was talking about. He was talking about women who specialize in this thing, they cannot step out the door, lest they first have to run to the bathroom, and robe their arms with this, and so forth. They come out with pins here, and pins there, and they look like a man with brass knucks, coming out of the trench ready to fight warfare. That is a woman’s downfall, and that is one of some women’s weaknesses. She never knows where to stop putting on this kind of apparel, or adornment. She is like the old Indian, if little does good, more will do better. Me look good in little, me look better in much. That is the way they go at it. It is the extreme that Peter was dealing with. I have noticed some of these high class, dignified type women in airports. I am telling you, they look like a walking display of everything from the garbage can in the garage. That is nonsense. They do not even look pretty. They destroy the real natural beauty by all that artificial junk. It is a woman’s weakness. Not every woman of course, but some sure are weak in that. We need to read between the lines. You know good and well ever since man sinned in Eden and God kicked him out, human beings are to wear clothing, so that should settle the question about plaiting hair and wearing gold, since all three are written the same way. God is concerned that we present a consistent image, and not be vain in outward appearances. Some women buy a dress today and pay a hundred dollars for it, wear it three times, and it is in the yard sale next summer. That is a waste; that is extravagant. You are letting the devil lead you around by the nose, when you live life like that. It is not wrong to pay a hundred dollars for a dress, but if you never get the hundred dollars worth of good out of it, there is something wrong with your mental judgment. I have never had a suit of clothes, that I did not wear until it had holes in the pocket. I believe in getting my money’s worth out of whatever I have purchased in life. This extravagant living is nonsense. Remember this, Paul taught in Timothy, that godliness with contentment is the greatest gain you will ever achieve in life. If you are a person that allows fashions and styles and gimmicks to be an obsession with your mental thinking, then you will go to bed at night worrying, tossing and turning, frustrated. You do not have peace of mind because your spirit is all caught up in these natural things that you try to associate your outer person to in this society. You do not want anyone ahead of you. You spend and spend, and try to keep up with everyone, but only a devil will drive you down the road like that; Every time you hit the ground, he will hit you with a blow of some nature. It is not wrong for people to want something a little better, but it is, when these things become an obsession, and they rob us of the real victory and peace of mind and contentment that God wants us to have. You know good and well that a woman is supposed to wear some clothes. But does that mean she has to worry about what she spends for one. Some people feel like, Well I just won’t put on a $9.95 dress, (now I am using this for an illustration.) They feel like they are known by how much they pay for their clothes. How much you pay for a suit, or a dress, does not make you a better child of God, it only makes you a slave to the devil. In every department store, you have some sales people just waiting for you. They watch the expression on your face and they can pretty well tell what you are wanting. They know how to go into that pocket book of yours, by building up your ego. I hope we have made the point, by what we have said. Let all of this be the hidden man of the heart, as Peter says next. In other words, we need to become more concerned about the inner person, how it appears to God, because it is the inner person that God is actually seeking to mold and shape into the image of Christ. It is the inner person that gets irked. It is the inner person that is selfish. It is the inner person that is hard to get along with many times, hard to please. So that is the person we must begin to think seriously about. People really see you for what you are on the inside. Verse 4, “But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” Right there is God’s ultimate objective in our lives. Notice now, how Peter goes to the Old Testament to get some examples. “For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their husbands.” Now let us think seriously, when Peter wrote that, he had a knowledge of the days of Abraham. How do we read Abraham and Sarah having lived together? As they went down the road, did the Canaanite hear them fussing and feuding? Is this unbelieving Canaanite hearing them constantly quarreling and bickering and fussing? I hardly think so. We know that God called Abraham and Sarah to be the beginning of a line of genetic people, in which He would preserve the revelation of Himself, so that through that element of people, as they would multiply in the earth, God’s purpose was that they would be a light to the Gentile world. Therefore Peter wrote to these believers admonishing them to take the similar examples of the holy women in olden times, so let us go back and take a look at Abraham’s hour of time. You can find it in Genesis, the 21st chapter, where we are going to see a woman in subjection to her husband. We pick up in the 5th verse of the 21st chapter. “And Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age. And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar, (Ishmael) the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking.” Now when you read the 19th and 20th chapter, you begin to get the age of Ismael at the time, he was just a young upstart of a fellow. You can see little Isaac weaned, and he just began to toddle around there, he did not walk very straight. But old Ishmael was standing over there giggling, and making all kinds of fun of Isaac. “Wherefore she said unto Abraham,” Now here is an example of a true holy bible woman being in subjection to her husband. And here we can get an example of what true subjection is and how we must understand it to be. “Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bond woman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” Well you read the following verses, if we interpret the word subjection, to be in subjection to her husband in all things, do not forget it says, as unto the Lord, then pass that right on through the head, the man, to the Lord Himself, if He is going to be the head of the man, then look at this woman telling her head what to do in respects to this child. It made Abraham feel bad and he went to God, so what did God say to Abraham? Hearken unto the voice of thy wife Sarah. It goes to show, there are times that a helpmate can be right, in what she, as a child of God, sees. It does not make her right all the time, but if she is walking with God and respects god, she knows what it is to respect headship, but she also knows that that husband is a mortal creature, and his inner life has to be remolded and shaped and fashioned and made to be subject to God’s will. I wanted to bring this in, in order to make a point, even though I realize that there are a lot of women that would say, Oh Bless God, Bro. Jackson said I could tell my husband to go jump in the creek. That is not what I said, but there is a right way to look at these scriptures. Peter was referring to women who were the wives of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, right on down the line. They left a testimony and an image of proper conduct, as they were submissive unto their own husbands. Yet you know good and well when you read that in the 21st chapter of Genesis, that Sarah said to Abraham, Get that kid out of here. She was telling Abraham to do something, and Abraham was reluctant. He did not want to see it that way. Well as some of these preachers interpret subjection, Sarah should have kept her mouth shut, and Abraham should have said to her, Now look Sarah, you go on back into the tent and mind your own business. That kid stays here. Then we can say this, There would probably have been constant warfare between the two kids as they grew up. Abraham would have found himself at times dealing with a problem, he would probably have went to Sarah, crying on her shoulder, I just don’t know what to do. These two kids have grown up, and now they are always fighting. But the fact that she said, Get him out of here, Abraham did not have to listen to any kind of squabbles going on between the two kids, while Isaac was growing up. “Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord,” even though this verse says that, we do not interpret it that she went down the road, harping, my lord, my lord, my lord. It was just that she had a way of referring to him that let everyone else know, he is my head, whether she says my lord or master, or whatever, the outside person knew that there was a woman who knew how to respect her husband in public. This world today is going to pieces, because human beings do not know how to respect each other as husband and wife in a public place. Sometimes they will get irked at each other right out in a restaurant and begin gnawing and gnashing on one another. A public place is no place to humiliate each other. If there is a difference, and there is something that needs to be discussed, at home, away from the public, and away from the children, is the place to discuss it. “Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, (now Peter says) whose daughters ye are as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.” Now let’s go back to Genesis, and pick up another point, dealing with adorning. When Isaac grew up, and it was time for him to have a wife, Abraham chose his servant Eleazar, to go back to Mesopotamia, to seek a wife for him, and we want to look at what Abraham set with him, the kind of token. These precious jewels can be looked upon as having a two fold meaning. First we can say, some of it was probably gold, some of it was probably silver adorned with stones of various descriptions. The main thing is, it was something of value. This spoke to Rebekah that her future husband was a man of wealth. She was given a certain amount of these jewels, but if she was a holy woman of old that could be referred to for exampleship, you have to understand Peter as seeing her, though not living in her hour, as a woman of wisdom, of a conservative attitude that knew exactly how to adorn herself. She would not wear all of that at the same time. However it was left up to her according to her own discretion, as to how she wanted to appear in a public place. She could choose what she would put on. These also portrayed gifts, such as we know the bride of Christ will be decked with. As Rebekah left that land to come to the land where she would meet her husband, those jewels were in her possession all the way through, we do not know that she wore them every day, sitting on the back of a camel, going through the hot dusty desert, but the point I am making is this, When modern day Gentile preachers want to go to such extremes and say, a woman is not supposed to wear anything of gold because the bible says so, then what in the world did Abraham send that jewelry back to Mesopotamia for? It was a token; showing that where she was to go, there was riches. Christian men who have submitted to their head, have no trouble getting their Christian wives to submit to them.
Verse 7, giving honor unto your wives, I will use the illustration of the old Indian. The Indian culture and custom was, that he rides the horse and she walks 20 paces behind. The white man came along and said, Hey chief, how come you ride and your wife walks? Me got no other horse. That was his excuse, But do you know what? I believe when Joseph went to Egypt and took Mary and the little child, Joseph wasn’t riding and Mary walking. I am convinced she was sitting on a beast, and if they only had one, she was sitting on it with the child, and Joseph was leading the beast. I know we have cultures in this world that rule societies and races. You may think they have principles in them, but the real human love that God would have allowed to be there, is not there. Many times human beings are made prisoners of a culture, or a custom or tradition, and there is not one ounce of peace, nor anything that pleases God in it all. You must realize, if God called Abraham to be the beginning of a plan, then Abraham was a man that could learn some right things. We know also that when God gave him that promised son of Isaac, the day came that God tested him, tested his obedience by telling him to go up and offer for a sacrifice, his only son Isaac. God never showed any indication on His part that it would be changed, so Abraham went right down to the very point, ready to strike the death blow to that son of his. Then God intervened and provided. Then God said, Now I know that Abraham will command his household. When we put all these things together, we are to see this, there is a man and his wife, and there are his children, somehow or other, over a period of time Abraham has been tested, the test proved he was a man that was learning, and God wants him to be the head of that household. Yet his wife, being in subjection to him, still told him, Get that kid out of here. When we begin to look at that old testament as our background, where it projects the revelation upon which the new testament is launched, then we have to realize, there are certain exampleships and likenesses that lay right there in the character and lives of those individuals, that we must pay attention to. “Likewise, you husbands, (verse 7) dwell with them according to knowledge. (That knowledge is something we have to learn as we walk with God, and as our homes are built, and multiplied. It should be the desire of every man and every woman, and every child in that home, to create an environment that would please God and glorify God.) Giving honor unto the wife as the weaker vessel, (Here is an important part,) and being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered.” Any time a Christian man and his wife, bringing children into this world, take for granted that because God has forgiven them of their past sinful natures, and they are now his children, and they go to church and praise the Lord and such like, but somehow or other, never begin to realize the seriousness of what it is that god wants them to grow into, as far as attitude and conduct, especially in the home toward each other, right there is where our prayers can be hindered. Right there in the home is where we say things we should not say, and do things we should not do, and conduct ourselves in a way we should not, and thereby bring in an ill feeling in our spirits. Many times we go through two or three days pouting, feeling hurt and we go to pray and it seems like our prayers do not go any higher than the ceiling. You may have disagreements with each other, but you do not have to let a disagreement get to the place that you work yourself up into such a frenzy. Like I said earlier, you cannot prove to me that God gets angry and starts stomping his feet, and yelling at us, because we somehow or other failed to do His will. God is not like that, He is longsuffering with us. He knows exactly how to plead with us, or to exhort us, or admonish us. Suppose you went into the bedroom to pray, and the minute you opened your mouth and said, Heavenly Father, He said, Oh shut up! I’m not talking to you? You know God does not do things like that. You do not even tell the sinner that He acts like that. You tell the sinner how much God loves him. Well if He is truly that kind of God and Christ is our head, then surely sooner or later, we are going to have to learn how that head is applied to us, so that His influence can begin to be applied in our homes. If you get mad at each other, and stomp around, and go for days that you hardly talk to each other without exploding, that is a sign of an uncontrolled spirit in you. You can go right out here and say, You do not know what you are talking about, but if you are like that, you know I am speaking the truth. My mother-in-law has lived in my house now for over 2 years. Go ask her how many times she has heard us yelling and fussing at one another. We are not cramped because she lives there; we have never lived like that. I know this one thing, we will never enjoy a bit more peace in our lives, and in our homes than what we allow God to build in us. If allowed, He will instill in us everything we need and want to make our lives happy, here in this life. Why are you talking like this, Bro. Jackson? Because it is an evil world you are living in, and we have a responsibility before God. I do not know when Jesus is coming to get us out of here, but I know one thing, these children are not going to learn anything in school that will help them spiritually. They are going to be exposed to the temptations, the aggravations, and the agitations, as well as all the stimulations of modern, mortal flesh. The general theme of natural minded mankind is, I am here to get out of life all I can, at everyone else’s expense. That is not what the Christian example is supposed to teach them. To you young people I say, When you get married, and start down the road of life together, and you have in your minds a vague knowledge of God, and you want God t lead you, one of the best things you will ever do is be honest with yourself and be honest with god. You ask God to help you be the kind of wife or husband He want you to be. Too many times the young girl wants to mold the man to fit her designs in life. Oh no, that will not work, and vice versa. Maybe the young man is going to be hard to please until she comes my way. That is not the way it goes either. But if the two will be honest with themselves and with God, then God Himself can bind those two individuals together with such a human love and attitude, that God can tell the devil just as He did that day concerning His servant Job, when the devil wanted to test him; for He knows adversity will just bond you together even more. When your little child has a fever some night, Dad will not say, Why don’t you go do something for him, I have to sleep. I realize sometimes if a man is working on a shift, he needs a certain amount of rest. But I know this also, if a father has a true fatherly love and he wakes up in the night and that little offspring of his is crying with a burning fever, he would be a poor dad if he did not go to that crib and pick that little one up, hold it, and pray, God do something for this child of mine. He is your responsibility, you brought him into this world. God will hold you responsible for your attitude toward it. My wife was talking to a family yesterday, and it is a very pitiful case. A young woman probably around 30 years of age, her husband around 30 something, they already have a little child, but the past year, this husband is like a lot of these, I call them brainless, modern youth, raised up to know nothing, went off, stayed about 3 months, then finally came home, and the woman was as good as she could be to show him that she loved him. He stayed a little while and left again. It came time for her to give birth to this other baby, she sent word to him, please come. A week after the baby was born, he came home just a little while, and never even looked at his children. He went off to live with another woman. That is why I am preaching this. Young people, you will never be a bit happier in life than what you are willing to learn right now, how to be. You are never going to learn out there in the world. Right here is where you are going to learn it. It is all, right in here, the instructions, and the road map. The Bible is the best psychological book in the whole world. Read Proverbs, read Ecclesiastes, and apply that portion to yourself and your daily life, and God will be the one that will help you down the road of life. If you do have a bit of grievance between yourselves, fussing in front of your child is the last thing on earth you should ever do. No, I am not picking on anyone, this is just common sense. When you discuss your differences, and you express yourselves, many times with terrible derogatory phrases in front of the children, you do not know, but you are beginning to mold in the child’s mind a certain attitude that will affect it’s whole life. The children are likely to grow up, having the same bad habits. My Dad used to say, and old timers had this saying, If the Mommy horse trots, and the Daddy horse trots, how do you expect the colt to pace. They learn it from Mom, they learn it from dad, they do likewise. God will never argue with you, but He will say, Come and let us reason together. It is one thing to reason, and to counsel, but an argument never gets any man or woman anywhere. Whatever creates a hurt, sooner or later one has to break down and say, I am sorry. How many times, as we walk the pathway of life, do we have to go the bedroom, get down on our knees, and say God, I’m sorry for the way I have conducted myself today? It is in our home, it is where we work, it is as we walk the street, it is as we go into the place of business, there is where we really live the testimony of what we possess inside. We need also to pray for out little children every day, that God will protect them, and draw them to Himself, and we ought to pay attention to the children of our brothers and sisters in the faith. I like little children myself, I like to show little children that even though I am an older person, I am not a person to be afraid of. Years ago, when men out in the country would get together somewhere just to talk, many times Dad would take me along, and ever so often, one of them would take out his pocket knife and say to me, I’m gonna cut your ears off. He was just trying to give me attention of course, but you will never know how badly that scared me. I said to myself, when I grow up, I will never do that. Now a lot of people have thought a child should be seen and not heard, but I will tell you one thing, if they are never made to feel that they fit in, many times that is why they fit in so easily out there in the world. They don’t fit in at home, it has been a long time since Mom picked them up and gave them a hug, and squeeze, and said, Now be good in school today. They have been told to shut up, get out of here you little devil, more times than they have been hugged and kissed. If I live to be 100 years old, I still want little ones to know that I like them. Let me say this also, Do not leave your little children at home; bring them to church, and let them roll around on the floor. They will learn a lot more than you think. They need to know that they fit in as part of the crowd. Brothers and sisters: If you want peace, there are a few things we can learn in life about how to have peace among ourselves, with each other, and with our children. I am not saying that all of our children are going to become Christians, but at least we can let the right kind of example be put before them. If they miss it, then the fault is not yours.
RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS
Let us go into the 31st chapter of Proverbs, where we will find some words of wisdom. Before we start reading though, I want to relate something to you. I received a call from a certain lady in another state, whose husband has left her with four small children. As I listened to her on the phone, in the background I heard four little kids screaming, yelling, and she was telling me, Bro. Jackson, I need some help, would you care to call me some night after I have put the little ones to bed, and explain to me what is the proper way to bring up children? I realize in this hour we live in, there are a lot of young people that do not have a balanced attitude. All of this sex education has only turned loose a bunch of uncontrolled passions, and undisciplined minds that think all of this they have learned in school is something to have a big time with. Let me say though, that every young man and young woman that ever came together in a relationship, that brings about a child in this world, you are responsible right then and there, how you look after that little one. That is God’s unwritten law. Any man can father a child, and any woman can give birth to one, but it takes a man and woman to be to that child, what it needs. Somehow or other young people today get the idea that life is one big utopia; and that society owes them something. Do what you want to do, and the government will take care of you. What would happen in this country today, if our total economy went bankrupt? It could happen. It happened in Germany twice, and it has happened in Italy ever so many times since the beginning of the Roman Empire. If so, life to you, will be what you make it. Love is a beautiful thing, but if you think love is looking at some back headed kid, tall, dark, and handsome, or it is some young girl with a nice shape, you are heading for a cliff. That does not furnish a proper foundation on which to base a happy life. I have seen this in school, many times a young girl will let their beauty drive them crazy. They like to be the flower of the class. I went to school, I won’t mention where, and there was a young girl in my class that really liked to be admired by all the boys. I heard after I had went into the army and came home, that she had lost her mind. Somewhere in life there is more to this than just beauty alone. The prettiest girl int his world can be as mean as the devil, and not fit to be a wife to anyone. Therefore young boys, when you sit your eyes on a mate, do not always look for that blond hair, black hair, or such color eyes. You take a good look at that inward nature. That is what you fall in love with. That fleshly body you see is just the house she lives in. Inside the physical house that attracts your eyesight is the spirit of a person, and it could be that she would be your downfall, a trap to ruin the rest of your life. Let us now read Proverbs 31:10. “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.” How true that is. So much is said today, Hollywood publicizes models, the sex image stands out. That is what the world is going by today. Who get all this celebrity attention on TV programs? You never hear one thing about what the Bible calls a virtuous woman, do you? No matter what kind of ornery life they live, they are well thought of. That is why they are used as the selling agent for cigarettes, liquor, beer, or some other commodity like that. The bible woman is not longer an idol sought after. “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool, flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.” Well you say, Bro. Jackson, we don’t work like that any more. That is true. That is why I say, you have to apply this to the changes of time, whatever comes into existence that shows a woman portraying, and participating in her home obligations, that is what you must interpret these scriptures as being applied to. I am reminded in the book of Acts that Paul met a woman in Asia by the name of Lydia. She was the seller of purple. In other words, evidently she was a woman that was very skillful in the dying and spinning of this material, and she had a good market for it, wherever she went. Go to the Navajo Indian Reservation and see who does the spinning. The woman. You see them sitting there spinning that wool, weaving it, putting it either into rugs or blankets or something, and it is a known fact the Indians have had some kind of code or formula for making dyes; we do not even have in our clothing industry today. Verse 14, “She is like the merchants’ ships: she bringeth her food from afar. She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, an a portion to her maidens. She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength and strengtheneth her arms. (She doesn’t have to join an aerobics class.) She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.” In other words, she wants her whole family to be well dressed, and warm, so that when they do appear in public they are not looked upon as neglected individuals. “She maketh her coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.” Now that is why I said earlier, what I did. Whose adornment, as Peter was describing, let it not be that of just putting on apparel, but you know the word of God is not written to contradict itself. Here is Proverbs, the writer is giving instruction how she clothes her family in scarlet, her tapestry, that means her curtains and things she decorates her house with, so that is why I said, somewhere we have got to hit a middle of the road interpretation of all scriptures. If we do not, that is exactly what causes many people to go into a ditch, and are left sitting there spinning their wheels, wondering why the rest of the world goes on by them. “Her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of the land. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honor are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed: her husband also, and he praiseth her.” Now let us go into 1st Timothy, chapter 6. This is Paul’s teaching, which basically starts out towards the preacher, but we can apply it to the laity. We start in verses 1 & 2, because the first two verses are dealing with ancient times, when Christendom started out, and many rich households had servants or slaves. That is why Paul writes, “Let as many servants as are under the yoke, (that means His teaching) be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, (meaning their master is Christian,) let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.” In other words, back in that time when Christendom first came among the Gentiles, many of the wealthy people had slaves, and it wasn’t always black people from Africa. Many Jews were taken, in the conflicts. You read that in the book of Kings; where the young Jewish maiden was sold to the king of Syria. Now the point is, we know that when the gospel came to the Gentiles 2000 years ago, it did not come showing partiality just to the poor people. It was open to the rich as well. But to those that had servants or slaves, the apostles laid down principles on how those masters should treat their fellow slaves, because some of those slaves became Christians also. That is exactly why the letter to Philemon was written by Paul; because one of his slaves had ran off and came to Paul. Paul wrote that letter back, and when you read it, you begin to see some things. In actuality, it was Christendom in Asia and Europe, through a process of time, that abolished slavery. Let us read on. “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, (wholesome words is plain common sense, and many times it is reading between the lines on how to apply that in our day and hour, that it might produce the purpose of God in our individual lives.) Even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain.” This word gain points to what is going on right now in the religious word. The 700 Club and Oral Roberts’ son is preaching the gospel of materialism. Brothers and sisters, it is the curse of the day. All of that goes to show it is the Laodicean age. It was not the religious world that led the world into a materialistic hour. The church world did not manufacture modern technology. The church world did not make the computer. The church world did not make the jet airplane. The church world did not make high speed conveyor lines for the assembly of cars and appliances. It is natural people of the world who have given their mentality to that which we will say, the Creator put them here for. They have created these things in this hour, but all this kind of knowledge comes out here in the 20th century, and it is the means by how wealth, materialism is more or less fostered. But we find out it isn’t long until the religious world gets on the bandwagon of this wealth. They began to gauge the success of things by the material growth. Dollars become a yardstick by how they measure the will of God. They would not want one of you for a testimony, but you let somebody go out around Arizona, or Houston, Texas or California, and get a piece of ground and come up raising potatoes, or cotton, or something, and come up making a fortune in about 3 years time, they will fly him all over the country to tell how he did it. They are more interested in the dollars than they are how God deals with you to understand truth. Truth is not measured in dollars and cents. Truth is something you do not buy with money, diamonds or rubies. Truth is something that is the treasure of God’s storehouse. He has kept these things from the wealthy, and the wise of the world. Paul continues on here. “Supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.” They wonder why you never come to their meetings, why you do not support their programs. They say you are a radical, you are fanatical. Well we have to take the word of God as an exhortation and warning to us. Stay away from that kind. Verse 6, “But godliness with contentment is great gain.” Now read that 5th and 6th verse and look at that thing right down the middle of the road, God is not telling you that you should learn to be a pauper. Did you know, when we go back about the beginning of the 3rd century of Christendom, as things went off into Catholicism, many of the priests who joined the monks club, vowed themselves to a life of poverty, owning nothing. I have an old dictionary down home that gives a biography of some of that period. Some of those monks wanted to prove their virtue, their spirituality. One old monk, it tells how many days, or weeks, or months, I forget how it was, sat in sackcloth. He had a big pole put in the ground with a little platform on top, and he sat on top of that in sackcloth, with no food or anything. Some of these same creatures are driven by a Satanic spirit to go off into caves, vowing themselves into a life of poverty, thinking that riches are evil. Many never took a bath, and they let their beard and hair grow, broke out with all kinds of sores and boils, and some died in that shape. They were doing it for the Lord. All of this goes to show there has got to be a middle of the road where we find truth. We can look at the literal word and run out the back door. Or we can look at it right and go out the front door. “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. (But while we are here, it is up to us as to how we will conduct ourselves and use it.) And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the LOVE of money is the root of all evil.” Now some say, The Bible says money is the root of all evil. No, it is the love of it. God can take a Christian man and make him a prosperous business person. He might wind up with half a million dollars, and yet go down the street just as common as the man that just barely gets by from day to day. You might say God is a respecter of persons. No, God is not a respecter of persons, when He does that. It is the way God sess the ability that the person has, and how he will use it to glorify God while he is here on this earth. “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, (all of this means that when it gets to the place we are more concerned about how much money we can make, and how many nice things we can have, and this drives us and possesses us, and becomes our motivation, so that we go to bed at night and cannot sleep, because we don’t know how to handle it. We have become a slave to it) and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.” Now in another of Paul’s epistles, he speaks like this, If any man provide not for his own household, he is worse than an infidel. I read in here where Paul says, For I hear that there are some among you, that work not. In other words, they are the kind that have great faith, they are living by faith, but they usually do it traveling from one brother’s home, to another brother’s home. I will never forget, we had an incident like that in this area here a few years back. Two young fellows had been all over the United States, traveling from one group of Branham worshipers, to another group. Out here close to Ramsey, there was a family that lived on a farm. This man owned a lot of beef cattle. This man that was living there, his job was to maintain the fences and so forth. These two young fellows came gallivanting through the country and you could just hear them rattle about great faith, traveling from home to home, they ended up out there. The man’s wife was a good cook, so she fixed a good supper, and they just filled their bellies full. They gave them a good bed to sleep in that night. Then the next day the young man that was working there said to these two, Well I have to dig post holes today. Do you want to come along? Well we will have to pray about this, we like to pray and see what the will of God is. He said O.K. But when he came in for dinner, they were gone. I know myself, when I was young in the Lord and didn’t know a lot, I too was taken in by this kind. My wife has washed their clothes, ironed their shirts, cooked meals and fed them more than just once. We had a young preacher come here from Pennsylvania one time, and I used to think that everyone who came down the road with a Bible under his arm, was a great man of God. I found out many times, that some of them are worse than the Mafia. They are nothing but two bit hoodlums, using the Bible for a cheap ticket to a warm bed and a good meal. We took this young preacher home with us, and he was one of those that liked to walk the streets yelling. You’re going to hell, Jesus is coming, You can’t do this, or that. He ran up a telephone bill, and never offered one dime toward paying it. Well when Bro. William Branham preached the church ages, that put something in me, I said, Alright, from now on they are not going 5to use my home for a dumping ground. I’ll never put them out in the cold, but there is one thing for sure, I will not give them a chance to run up a telephone bill, and my wife have to wash and iron their dirty clothes and feed them. Christendom is not represented by a bunch of lazy, idle, worthless people, using Christ as an alibi to get through this world. Jesus said, Ye are the salt of the earth. Salt is something that seasons something. It gives it a good taste. But if it has lost it’s savor, it’s ability to season, then throw it out.
CONCLUSION
What we have said up until now has mainly been dealing with the home, husband and wife, both believers, and how they should learn to conduct themselves in their home, among their family, and especially with their children. When Christ is the head of the man, man the head of the woman, then you are going to find that sooner or later, there will be peace in that home. That does not mean that all those children are going to be Christians. But it does mean this, you do not have to live in torment raising four or five children. God has ordained that we can live in peace, if we will look at His word, and learn. My sister and I were never allowed to scream, yell, stomp, and break things, when we grew up. My wife and I have also raised five children; we never had to go to bed with kids screaming, yelling, and having tantrums. There is no need for it. You do not have to be mean. You do not have to call them devils. You do not have to knock their heads off. As I said earlier, we are obligated by the Creator who put us in this earth, that if we love Him, and He loves us, then He wants us to pass a little love on to our children. Sometimes they do need a little swat. But on the other hand, we can get into a habit of swatting, and they get hardened to that, so that it does not good at all. Therefore it is better to learn the disposition of the child, what they like, and what they do not like, and use that to correct them. Do not wait until they are 11 or 12 years old to start teaching them how to conduct themselves though. By then it will be too late. As for these scriptures, we have been reading, we need to realize, these letters were written to households who were in the family of God, and that is how you have to apply these letters. When it comes to a home where one is a child of God, and the other is not a child of God, you have to realize these scriptures have got to be applied with wisdom, by the individual, having mind enough to be prayerful and look at his or her predicament. If this marriage is to be salvaged, it is going to depend more or less on the part of the believer, how they conduct themselves, and how they show the grace of God to that unbelieving companion. If that unbelieving companion, no matter whether it is he or she, begins to show resentment, and the believer takes on an attitude, I am a child of God now, I have certain rights, many times you are going to find yourself living as if almost all your rights have been taken away. It may hang that way for quite a while. God does this to temper, and mold His will in the believer, if the believer has a mind and ear to listen to His Spirit. Does the fact that I have become a believer, and say my wife is an unbeliever, mean that I now begin to relinquish the love expression toward her? Am I better than she is now? No, not one bit. In fact, God may even demand more of me towards her. Why? Because He may know that she will never hear the preacher, but many times through the ridiculment that she may throw at me, and to every bit of that she gets kind gestures, good behavior, that may be the only thing that will ever get through to her. There is something to this thing called salvation. Now remember the title of my message, Living in Peace. That is why Paul wrote here in 1st Corinthians 7, what he did. “But to the rest speak I, (verse 12 of chapter 7) not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.” Paul did not go into a big explanation, did he? He did not say, Sit down, and have a talk with her, and find out the things she will do, and the things she will not do. The analysis of it is, she loves him, she appreciates her husband, she just does not feel the necessity to be a believer like him. Therefore if there is going to be a compatible relationship, then the believing husband has definitely got to come to some kind of conclusion. I have got to show just as much love, or more, to prove that I appreciate her. There is one thing sure, he cannot resent her because he is a believer now. He may say, I am going to pass by and have a little prayer meeting with my buddies, and there she is at home, waiting supper on him. That may be justifiable once in a while, but it is not wise, if there is going to be compatibility between him and her. He may think he is getting closer to God, and all the time he is only building himself a brush pile at home, or vice versa. In other words, if we are going to live for God, and we want the home to be compatible, so we can live in peace, we have got to learn that there are certain limitations. I will take you right back to Timothy, that talks about those servants and slaves. They cannot always go to town when they want to. But they can be a child of God. Well if we look at this from one standpoint of human behavior, and Christian conduct, we can begin to apply certain things otherwise. When we first started at the Tabernacle years ago, we got acquainted with certain individuals, and had the opportunity to observe some homes where there was not unity, nor stability. The women that I have in mind were young then, and they had young children, but because they felt like they were children of God, they had the freedom to be gone all the time. It was not long until one was divorced. Then later the other was divorced, and having known the background of both, I could well see why. Both husbands gave their wives a good car to drive. Brothers, any time a woman uses a man for every dollar he is worth, that may be the way you want to live in the world, but you will stand before your maker one day, and you will answer for every bit of it. This book is a road map. “I am using my Bible for a road map.” You can read it right, or you can read it wrong. We were traveling to Colorado one time, and we knew that we were to meet a certain highway in Topeka, Kansas, that would take us west. I read the sign wrong. I was on the number of the road, but we wound up with the sun setting through the rear window, and I knew I was headed east. I had already drove about 15 miles out of the way, because I did not pay enough attention to the main road sign. That was the intersection where we met this highway. But that highway happened to make a bend right there. I was on that number, but I was on it the wrong direction. Well many times we read this book wrong, and end up going the wrong way with things. Our life does not benefit by it. We wind up with problems and circumstances that we do not know how to handle. As Paul went down through here in this category, he did not give a great explanation in each situation, but I am going to read it, and you read between the lines what he was looking at. He says to the man in verse 12, “Let him not put her away, And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.” That means if he is willing to be a husband, a companion and love you, then there is going to be something required of you in return to show this love. If you are going to benefit by it, he has got to benefit by something from you also. It works both way. Life is not a one way street. It is a two way road. “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, else were your children unclean.” This is as God would look upon it according to the Jewish people in the law. A Jewish man, under the law, married a Gentile woman, that whole marriage relationship is looked upon as out of wedlock. You read that in Ezra, the priests, and those Jews came back from Babylon, many of those Jewish men came back with Gentile wives, and when things began to be cleaned up, and they built the platform and Ezra got up on the platform and began to read the law, they found out what the law said about the Jews giving their sons and daughters to Gentiles and vice versa, right there is where everything stopped, and they realized what they had done. That is where Paul gets this, but we do know in certain limited cases, there were Gentile individuals that stood out. Rahab the harlot was not a Jew. She was a Gentile. She was counted in the bloodline, the lineage of the royal family. But that still does not change the law, nor the word of God. God runs those things to suit His purpose. Now, “Else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.” In other words, it goes to show, a believing husband married to an unbelieving wife, and yet there is a close, compatible, loving relationship, the children are looked upon by God, through the law of grace, just as clean and holy and sanctified in the home life, as they can be. “But, if the unbelieving depart, (Now this does not mean he leaves the next day after she gets saved. It means that over a period of time, and some times it may be short, and some times it may be long, things just don’t work out, there is such incompatibility, such a broken link of communication that the love that was once for each other is now gone.) Let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.” And I will have to say, as I close, it will always fall into the responsibility of the believing person, how he or she learns to apply the word of God to their life, and to their circumstance. You cannot reach out here and get forty-eleven other people to tell you what to do and what not to do, when you are an individual that ought to be able to talk to God yourself. If we are children of God having the holy ghost, we have got to believe that somehow God is able to talk to us, and tell us what to do. Therefore we do not run all over the country seeking advice from everyone we talk to. May God bless you. Amen.