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Transcript

Billy Graham - Marriage and the home · Pst T.D Jakes -The POTTER'S HOUSE

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Today I want to speak on marriage and the family,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to start from a very strange.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Passage for that subject.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I want to read from the 24th chapter of Matthew's Gospel.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: But of that, Jesus is speaking about his coming again.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: And he's giving the various signs.
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  Speaker 3: That will be taking place just before he.
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  Speaker 2: Comes back again.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Because the Bible teaches that our Lord is going to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: return to this earth. And the devil has already suffered
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a defeat.
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  Speaker 2: At the cross.
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  Speaker 1: And he will be thrown into the lake of fire ultimately.
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  Speaker 1: But Jesus is going to reign. And king of kings
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  Speaker 1: and lord of lords and prince of peace. And then
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  Speaker 1: the world is going to know peace. And in the
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  Speaker 1: 36th verse of the 24th chapter of Matthew it begins.
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  Speaker 1: But of that day and hour knoweth no man.
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  Speaker 2: No, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: But as the days of Noah were.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
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  Speaker 1: For as it was in the days that were before
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  Speaker 1: the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving
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  Speaker 1: in marriage, divorce, until the day that Noah entered into
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  Speaker 1: the ark, and knew not until the flood came and
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  Speaker 1: took them all away, so shall it also be. When
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  Speaker 1: the Son of Man comes. Now I want you to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: turn with me to the fifth.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Chapter of Ephesians. Ephesians, the fifth.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter, beginning with verse 18. And be not drunk with
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  Speaker 1: wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
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  Speaker 2: Singing and making.
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  Speaker 1: Melody in your heart to the Lord, which we've been
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: doing here today. Giving thanks always for all things unto
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: God and the Father in the name of our Lord
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  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear
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  Speaker 1: of God.
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  Speaker 2: Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Now there's a great misunderstanding about that word submit. And
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  Speaker 1: I've tried to do a little research on it and
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  Speaker 1: I asked my wife to do a little bit. What
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  Speaker 1: does that word submit mean? It does not mean to obey.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that the wife is to salute the
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  Speaker 1: husband and say yes sir every time he speaks.
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  Speaker 2: It's not a military term at.
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  Speaker 1: All.
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  Speaker 2: It means just that.
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  Speaker 1: That the husband is the head of the home.
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  Speaker 2: Just as Jesus is the head of the church.
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  Speaker 1: Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.
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  Speaker 1: For the husband is the head of the wife, even
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: as Christ is the head of the church. He always
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  Speaker 1: compares the church and the family. The church and Christ
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: relationship and the family. Therefore, as the church is subject
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  Speaker 1: unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own
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  Speaker 1: husbands in everything.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Husbands, love your wives. That is the key. Love your wives.
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  Speaker 1: Even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself
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  Speaker 1: for it.
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  Speaker 2: There we have it.
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  Speaker 1: We are to love our wives as Christ loves the church.
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  Speaker 1: that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing
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  Speaker 1: of water by the word, that he might present to
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  Speaker 1: himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
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  Speaker 1: any such thing, but that it should be holy and
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  Speaker 1: without blemish. So ought men, there again we come back,
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  Speaker 1: so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.
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  Speaker 1: He that loveth his wife loveth himself. No man ever
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  Speaker 1: hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even.
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  Speaker 2: As the Lord the church.
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  Speaker 3: For we are members of his body, of his flesh,
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  Speaker 3: and of his bones. For this cause shall a man
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: leave his father and his mother, and be joined unto
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  Speaker 3: his wife, and they too shall be one flesh.
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  Speaker 1: This is a great mystery. But then we go back
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  Speaker 1: to the church. But I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: let every one of you in particular so love his
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  Speaker 1: wife even as himself. And the wife see that she
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  Speaker 1: loves her husband or reverences her husband. Some of you
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  Speaker 1: may be thinking that this passage from Ephesians is unrealistic
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  Speaker 1: in a day when half... of our marriages are ending
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  Speaker 1: in divorce, at least in the United States, almost half,
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  Speaker 1: not quite so in Canada, but almost. The average duration
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  Speaker 1: of marriages in the United States, when you see a
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  Speaker 1: couple going to get married, you can figure that their
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  Speaker 1: marriage will last, the average will.
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  Speaker 2: Last about nine and a half years. That's all.
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  Speaker 1: And now we have whole new lifestyles and many lifestyles
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  Speaker 1: in which they say that marriage is only a piece
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  Speaker 1: of paper.
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  Speaker 2: We're not going to get married.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to live together without the benefit of wedlock
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  Speaker 1: or the blessing of God. And the divorce rate in
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  Speaker 1: America may have leveled off in recent months, but it's
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  Speaker 1: still the highest, one of the highest in all the world.
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  Speaker 1: The experts are telling us that if present trends continue...
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  Speaker 1: that 70% of the children born today will spend most
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  Speaker 1: of their lives, young lives, as teenagers, in one-parent homes,
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  Speaker 1: according to the Chicago Tribune the other day. Divorce among
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  Speaker 1: Christians used to be rare, but today we're hearing more
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  Speaker 1: and more about an attack against the Christian homes. Homes
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  Speaker 1: are in trouble that we thought would never be in trouble.
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  Speaker 1: Because there's an attack of Satan, I believe, in a
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  Speaker 1: very special way today against the Christian home. Because the
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  Speaker 1: Christian home is.
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  Speaker 2: The basic unit of our society.
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  Speaker 1: And if it fails and falls, our society is indeed
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: in trouble. Ephesians 5 describes a relationship of trust and
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  Speaker 1: love and intimacy. It's been terribly misunderstood and abused. The
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  Speaker 1: concept of the husband's headship has been viewed by many
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  Speaker 1: people as authority in decision making. But it goes far
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  Speaker 1: beyond that. When the Bible says that the husband is
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  Speaker 1: the head of the wife, just as Christ is the
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  Speaker 1: head of the church, that implies leadership, love, protection, giving, caring.
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  Speaker 2: A woman's submission.
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  Speaker 1: To her husband is to be based on trust in
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  Speaker 1: Christ and confidence in the caring love of her husband.
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  Speaker 2: And so Paul is speaking to Christians, not speaking to
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: the rest of the world. He's talking about Christian marriages.
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  Speaker 1: And the Bible warns that if you don't marry in
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  Speaker 1: the Lord, if you have the wrong husband or the
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  Speaker 1: wrong wife, and they're not believers when you marry them,
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  Speaker 1: you're making a mistake. We're not to be hooked up
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  Speaker 1: with unbelievers. And our marriages are going to be in trouble.
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  Speaker 1: You say, Billy, isn't that an idealistic picture?
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  Speaker 2: Of course it is. But it is a picture of.
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  Speaker 1: What everyone is looking for in marriage.
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  Speaker 2: Love and joy and peace and happiness.
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  Speaker 1: And I don't know how anyone can pursue it without
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  Speaker 1: the grace and the power of God today. In Ephesians
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  Speaker 1: the Apostle Paul has been talking about the new life
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  Speaker 1: that has been given to us in Jesus Christ. The
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  Speaker 1: new community that could be reconciled and integrated if everyone
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  Speaker 1: came to Christ. The new standards which God expects of
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  Speaker 1: both the family, the community and the church. Then he
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: comes to the new relationships which involves marriage, especially within
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  Speaker 1: the family. Several important concepts are presented in this message
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  Speaker 1: or passage concerning marriage.
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  Speaker 2: The first one, liberation.
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  Speaker 1: We hear a great deal about women's lib over the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: past few years. The first time I ever saw that expression,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: do you know where it was?
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  Speaker 2: Very interestingly.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know that it has any significance, but the
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  Speaker 1: first time I ever saw the expression was in the
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  Speaker 1: Little Red.
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  Speaker 2: Book by Mao Zedong. I'm sure it was used long
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  Speaker 2: before that.
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  Speaker 1: But the thing of it is, the one that came
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  Speaker 1: to liberate women.
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  Speaker 2: Is Jesus Christ.
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  Speaker 1: Christ did more to liberate women than any other person
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  Speaker 1: that ever lived.
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  Speaker 2: The second word, the first word is liberation.
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  Speaker 1: The second word is love. Husbands, love your wives even
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  Speaker 1: as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.
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  Speaker 1: Titus 2, 4, wives are to love their husbands and
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  Speaker 1: to love their children. Yes, what kind of love? It's
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  Speaker 1: agape love. It's a supernatural love. Did you know it's
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  Speaker 1: very interesting to me that out in the world there's so.
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  Speaker 2: Much talk of love today?
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  Speaker 1: Sexual love, friendship love, all kinds of love. But they're
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  Speaker 1: talking about a very inferior type of love compared to
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  Speaker 1: the love that Christ can give you when you come
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  Speaker 1: to Christ. When you come to Christ and give your
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  Speaker 1: life to him and you and your partner know Christ,
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  Speaker 1: when you make love, you will have a depth and
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  Speaker 1: an ecstasy and a joy and a thrill that you
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  Speaker 1: could never know unless you knew Christ.
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  Speaker 2: Did you realize that?
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  Speaker 1: That he enters into the sexual relationship between the husband
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  Speaker 1: and the wife in such a way that there's a
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  Speaker 1: depth to it and an excitement and an ecstasy that
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  Speaker 1: other people don't have. It's wonderful to be a follower
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  Speaker 1: of Christ and to have Christ in your heart. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: it's a serving love. Christ was a servant. He came
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  Speaker 1: to teach us the dignity of being a servant.
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  Speaker 2: It's a sacrificing love. Christ died.
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  Speaker 1: On the cross for our sins. He sacrificed his life
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  Speaker 1: for us. He shed his blood for us.
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  Speaker 2: That our sins might be forgiven.
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  Speaker 1: That we might be reconciled to God.
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  Speaker 2: And that's the way.
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  Speaker 1: We're to sacrifice for our husband, our wives.
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  Speaker 2: We're to sacrifice.
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  Speaker 1: Sacrifice.
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  Speaker 2: Thirdly, it's a sanctifying love.
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  Speaker 1: It sets her or him apart from any other human
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  Speaker 1: being in the world. When you say yes at the
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  Speaker 1: marriage altar, and when that marriage is consummated, you are one.
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  Speaker 2: One flesh.
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  Speaker 1: When a man loves his wife as Christ loves the church,
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  Speaker 1: it isn't difficult for that wife.
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  Speaker 2: To submit to a husband, or a husband to submit himself.
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  Speaker 1: To the wife, because you see, we're to submit one
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  Speaker 1: to the other, it says. That kind of love is
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  Speaker 1: desperately needed today. And then there are many people that
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: are single people. That's the third word I want you
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  Speaker 1: to think about, singles. Yes, I believe there's a place
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  Speaker 1: in the Bible for single people. I believe God calls
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  Speaker 1: some people to be single. They have a ministry that
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  Speaker 1: no one else can have. In fact, there's not enough
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  Speaker 1: men in some countries, not enough women in some countries
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  Speaker 1: to go around. Some people have to remain single just from.
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  Speaker 2: That point of view.
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  Speaker 1: But many people are called to be single so they
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  Speaker 1: can serve God to a greater degree. And we as
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  Speaker 1: believers are to love single people. The church has only
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  Speaker 1: recently begun to wake up and realize that we have
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  Speaker 1: a responsibility to singles. One young man said, that the
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  Speaker 1: church always seemed like Noah's Ark.
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  Speaker 2: If you weren't paired, you were impaired.
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  Speaker 1: And then the fourth group that I'd like to talk
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  Speaker 1: about are.
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  Speaker 2: The aged, growing in our society.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm more interested in that the older I get.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: The scripture says we're to love old people. You know,
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  Speaker 1: a recent article in the Toronto Star said that if
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: medical technology continues to advance, the number of the very elderly,
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  Speaker 1: that's 85 and up, will more than triple by the
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  Speaker 1: end of this century. The 1960s were called the age
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  Speaker 1: of Aquarius, but someone has said that today is the
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  Speaker 1: dawning of the age of Emeritus.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, we are graying.
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  Speaker 1: And we have more people today over 60 than we
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  Speaker 1: have teenagers and young people. So they have to be
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  Speaker 1: taken into account now in the political world. I know
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  Speaker 1: that in the American election, that people like Senator Claude
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  Speaker 1: Pepper and others are having an influence for their party
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  Speaker 1: by appealing to older people. Because there are certain needs
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  Speaker 1: that they have that have not been recognized by our
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  Speaker 1: society that need to be recognized. Someone has said it's
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  Speaker 1: a full-time job to be old and poor. I don't
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  Speaker 1: think any of us can possibly realize what it means
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  Speaker 1: to be an older person and don't have enough income
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  Speaker 1: to pay your medical bills and to pay your grocery
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  Speaker 1: bills and to keep yourself in some decent place to live.
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  Speaker 2: And there are many like that.
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  Speaker 1: And those people are the ones that the church ought
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  Speaker 1: to be doing something about and looking for after them.
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  Speaker 1: We have a responsibility, according to the scriptures.
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  Speaker 2: To the widows, to the older people.
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  Speaker 1: In our churches, in our communities. That's a responsibility that
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  Speaker 1: you have as a believer. The psalmist said in the
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  Speaker 1: 31st Psalm, Those who see me in the street, hurry
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  Speaker 1: past me. I am forgotten, as good as dead in
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  Speaker 1: their hearts. I'm something to be discarded. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: the psalmist was old.
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  Speaker 2: And way back in that day.
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  Speaker 1: Younger people were passing by quickly. They didn't want the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: responsibility of helping the older people. The older people have
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  Speaker 1: given the younger people.
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  Speaker 2: All kinds of things.
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  Speaker 1: They've sacrificed for them in war and they've built a
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  Speaker 1: technological empire throughout the world that gives you all the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: things for the light bulbs, the television, the radio, everything.
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  Speaker 1: And now as they get old, the younger generation enjoys
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  Speaker 1: what the older people have done. but they don't thank
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  Speaker 1: them in some areas of our society. Thank God that's
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: not everywhere, but it's certainly true in some parts of
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: our society. Society often does not have room.
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  Speaker 2: For the elderly.
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  Speaker 1: They're ostracized, excommunicated, expelled like contagious lepers, no longer considered
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: full members of the human community.
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  Speaker 2: Many families do.
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  Speaker 1: Not want to take care of the older people in
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: their family, so we send them off to some other place.
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  Speaker 2: Old age for many is far more fearful than death.
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  Speaker 1: They don't look forward to the old age when they
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  Speaker 1: see how older people are treated today. And then the
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  Speaker 1: fifth word that I'd like to leave with you is submission.
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  Speaker 1: Submitting yourselves one to another in.
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  Speaker 2: The fear of God.
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  Speaker 1: Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.
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  Speaker 1: When you submit yourself to your husband, although husband submit
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  Speaker 1: himself to the wife.
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  Speaker 2: It's as unto the Lord. God is a part of
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  Speaker 2: that triangle. In other words, both the wife and.
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  Speaker 1: The husband are to submit themselves to the authority of Christ.
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  Speaker 1: Submission by the husband and the wife or the children.
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  Speaker 2: Is easy if love dominates.
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  Speaker 1: And when Christ comes into your heart, he gives you
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a supernatural love. The Holy Spirit produces love in you
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  Speaker 1: and through you. And there's some of you that just
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: cannot rekindle that love that you once had for your
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: husband or your wife when you were courting. The passion
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and the excitement has gone.
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  Speaker 2: And you said it can't be rekindled. Yes, it can.
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  Speaker 1: If you let Christ come in and dominate your life,
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  Speaker 1: he will love through you. In a way that you
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  Speaker 1: never knew before. Husbands are to love their wives as
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  Speaker 1: their own bodies.
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  Speaker 2: If you're a Christian.
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  Speaker 1: The person to whom you are to submit is not
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  Speaker 1: a tyrant but a lover. The instruction is not wives
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  Speaker 1: submit and husbands boss. It is wives submit and husbands love.
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  Speaker 1: It's husbands submit and wives love. Love is the key word.
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  Speaker 1: And when we love each other, it's easy to submit
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  Speaker 1: to each other. If the wife is to submit, it
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  Speaker 1: is to a lover who loves like Christ. Like Christ
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  Speaker 1: loved the church and gave himself for it on the cross.
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  Speaker 1: Submission is another aspect of love. It means to give
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  Speaker 1: yourself up to someone else. And then the sixth word
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  Speaker 1: I would like to leave with you today is obedience.
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  Speaker 1: Children are to obey their parents.
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  Speaker 2: Parents' authority is the Lord's authority. It's the natural law.
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  Speaker 1: And the scripture underscores that.
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  Speaker 2: And today we're.
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  Speaker 1: Getting away from the fact that the fifth commandment indicates
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  Speaker 1: that we're to honor our parents. We're to obey our parents.
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  Speaker 1: But Paul warned the parents, provoke not your children to wrath.
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  Speaker 1: Ephesians 6.4 says, don't goad your children to resentment. Another
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: translation says, don't exasperate your children. Don't misuse your parental authority,
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  Speaker 1: either by making irritating or unreasonable demands or by harshness
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  Speaker 1: and cruelty and favoritism, lest they become discouraged, as Colossians 3.21 says.
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  Speaker 1: They have a personality and a life of their own.
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  Speaker 2: Don't crush them. Don't exploit them.
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  Speaker 1: And today we read so many stories in our newspapers
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: of child abuse. And the part that I cannot understand
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: is how there can be this sexual abuse of children
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that is so prevalent today. It's beyond my imagination at
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: how low we stoop in our moral values that even
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: parents would engage in such a thing as that. The
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Bible says that the little people are on their own,
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  Speaker 1: are made in the image of God, and they have
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  Speaker 1: rights of their own. Rear them tenderly in the discipline
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  Speaker 1: and instruction of the Lord Instruct them mentally, morally, and spiritually.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yes, there's a need for discipline. But child abuse
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: today need to be careful that discipline is not used
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  Speaker 1: as an excuse for abuse in our homes. And then
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the seventh point that I want to leave with you
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  Speaker 1: is redemption. The marriage relationship illustrates the relationship of Christ
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and the church. He gave himself for it. The husband
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  Speaker 1: and the wife are intended to reflect and exhibit the gospel.
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  Speaker 2: When you and your.
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  Speaker 1: Wife look in the mirror together, you are to look
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  Speaker 1: in one sense as the church should look. Before God,
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  Speaker 1: a couple dedicated, surrendered to him with the children about.
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  Speaker 2: I know of a couple that have been.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Married some 40 years and he came from a terrible
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: home situation. He shuttled from one relative to another. He
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: was converted to Christ through a Sunday school teacher. And
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: he's written books on marriage in the family and he
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: says you cannot choose the type of family into which
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: you're born but you can choose the type of family
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: you establish for your children he and his wife have
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: had an active public minister for many years he's a
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: great seminary professor and he's a great man of god
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: his children are grown They're gone from home now, and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: all of them know the Lord. I heard the other
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: day that he and his wife are memorizing the book
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: of Psalms together. They're still in love, still growing, still
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: seeking Christ together. I want to ask you, have you
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: received Christ openly in your heart? Oh, you may be
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: a member of the church. You might have been confirmed, baptized.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: All of these things.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: But deep in your heart. Something is missing. And you
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: would like to have that something. And that something is Christ.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And you would like to have him in your home.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: As the center of your home. And I would give
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: you a suggestion. Before you ever eat a meal. You
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: ought to bow your head and.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Have a prayer.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: You ought to also as a family. Gather together and pray.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: The greatest moment that I look forward to every day.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Is when my wife and I at the end of
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the day. Can put our arms around each other. and
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: kneel in prayer together. What a wonderful thing that is.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: What a wonderful experience. Whatever the problems we might have
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: faced during the day, somehow they melt away in that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: moment of devotion and prayer. We read the Psalms every night,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: or we read some other passage of Scripture, and then
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: we pray together. Used to be the whole family, but
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: now they're just two of us. And we still carry
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the tradition that we've had with our family ever since
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the day we got married. And I believe that people
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: that pray and people that trust the Lord and go
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: to church faithfully. Those are the people that have the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: most wonderful, successful marriages.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: What about you?
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: What about the singles and the couples here today and
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the families here today?
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: A man and a wife.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I remember in, we went, I think it was Milwaukee,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: but I'm not sure it was in a midwestern city
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: we were holding a crusade and we were told about
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: a methodist church and the minister that morning had given
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: an invitation for people to come and receive christ and
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: they had their old-fashioned altar in that methodist church and
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: people began to come and there was a man there
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that was one of the leading businessmen of the city
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: he and his wife had been divorced they had one
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: son that had rebelled and gone away and they didn't
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: know where he was.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: And that morning, God spoke to the father.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: And he got up out of his seat, even though
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: he had been an officer in his earlier life in
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: that church. He got up before the whole congregation and
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: before all of his friends and went forward and knelt
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: at the altar and said, Lord Jesus, I have sinned
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and I'm sorry. Please forgive me.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Help me.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: And about that moment, he heard somebody crying behind him
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and he turned and there.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Was his wife.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Who now lived in Florida and he didn't dream she
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: was within a thousand miles.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: And she knelt at the same altar.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: And then as they were kneeling there together and they
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: put their arms around each other, they heard somebody else
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: turned around and there was their son that had been
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: lost for so long.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: And he knelt with them.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: And as a family, they were reunited in Christ. And
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: their tears were mingled together. And they went home together joyfully.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: They remarried.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And God has blessed their home. I'm asking you today.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: If you need to receive Christ into your heart and
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: let him forgive your sins. I'm going to ask you
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: to come and let him do that. Or if you
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: need to rededicate your life. You may be a son
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: or a daughter in your home. Or you may be
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: a wife or a husband. Or you may be a
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: family together. Or you may be a husband and wife.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Or you may be a single. Who needs the fellowship
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: of Christ in your singleness. And you haven't really found
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: him yet. I'm going to ask you to get up
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: out of your seat. As we've seen hundreds and even
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: thousands of people do this week. I'm going to ask
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: you to get up out of your seat. And come
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and stand in front of the platform. Quietly and reverently.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: And say I'm opening my heart to Christ tonight. I'm
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: willing to turn from my sins. I'm willing to receive
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: him into my heart and life. I want his love
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: and his grace. And it's forgiveness for me. I need
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: my wife to forgive me or my husband to forgive me.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I need a new direction.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: In my life.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And after you've all come, I'm going to say a
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: word to you and have a prayer with you and
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: give you some literature to help you in your Christian life. Now,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: if you've come in a bus or you're in a
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: family group, they'll wait on you.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Just get up and come.