In The Home (Honoring God)

Introduction

Certainly is good to see each and every one of you out tonight. We appreciate your attendance so much. We’re going to be on a, and I do appreciate the songs, Jim, very much. They go right along with the subject matter tonight. We’re going to be talking about a subject tonight that is kind of a touchy subject to talk about. It’s called the home. We know in Romans the 12th chapter, the first two verses, it talks about us living a transformed life, not being conformed to the world. I know of no subject more important than this one that we’ve conformed to the world on. That is the fact of how loose we’ve let the Lord’s work be done in our homes. We’re going to talk about that this evening.

We see in Malachi, second chapter, reading down through there about verses 10 through 16, we won’t read all those for sake of time.

Talking about the treachery of infidelity.

The words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 says this.

1. Are They Qualified to Be Married?

Before we go any further, I’m going to show you a slide. That slide on the very first question of who they married is are they qualified? So the rest of this lesson is going to be for those who are qualified to be married. Who’s qualified? One that has never been married before, one that has been married whose spouse has died, one who has been married whose spouse committed fornication, they put him away. Those are the three classifications who’s qualified to be married. If you’re here, you’re in a marriage, you’re in an unqualified marriage. James 5, 19 and 20 talks about brethren, if any of you do err and someone leads him from that sin, he saves the soul from death and covers a multitude of sin.

You’re here in an unqualified marriage. The rest of this lesson you’re going to struggle with because you’re dealing with the fact that you’re living in sin right now. You need to know that whatever I say about marriage after this doesn’t participate to you in this marriage because you need to straighten your marriage situation out immediately. Because salvation depends on you living a life according to God’s word. Not according to be conforming to the world, but being transformed from the world. But as we move forward, are they qualified? Then you can ask questions like, what is he or she really like? Religious issues. Where do we live? The parents, employment, money issues, sex issues, activities, children, the burden of failing, becoming a caretaker. In a changing world, though, that happens, we forget that eternal principles never change.

2. Marriage Is Honorable: One Man, One Woman for Life

If you turn back over to Genesis, the second chapter, as God has created man and woman, in verses 24 and 25, it says, Therefore shall a man leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. They were both naked, the man and the woman, and were not ashamed. We see in verse 23, Adam says, This now is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out.

His word is eternal, it stands forever. So we have to look at this, and I say this as a little cartoon. Enjoy the honeymoon for better or for worse in that great day, because the reality of marriage awaits you just not long after that. And making it work, the Lord hates divorce. We see in these passages here different things. Turn over to Hebrews the 13th chapter and verse 4. The writer of Hebrews there is talking about the marriage bed to be undefiled. In other words, there should be in the marriage. That one thing that we look at to say purity in the Lord’s marriage means it’s not to be defiled. When I think of that passage and think of the way that the writer wrote that, he means for us to understand the importance of marriage of one woman, one man for life.

And in through so doing that, we have changed that in the world today. We take that term and we conform to the world, and it is it just didn’t work. We got incorrect incompatible differences. We got works that do like that. I don’t like the way my wife cooks the biscuits. I don’t like these types of things. I don’t like the way my husband treats me. We look at it, and instead of trying to work things out, we go to the divorce. Marriage is honorable among all. Qualified candidates for marriage is honorable above all. And the marriage bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. Ephesians 5th, chapter verse 33, for the Apostle Paul there is talking about the church and some relationships between Christ and the church.

3. Love Your Wife, Respect Your Husband

He uses as an example the relationship between man and woman. Nevertheless, let each one of us, of you in particular, love his own wife as himself, and the lot wife see that she respects her husband. So in doing so, I want us to go through some things. Loving her as she wants. How do I love my wife? Closeness. She wants you to be close to her. Openness. She wants you to be open to her. Understanding. Don’t try to fix her. You want to have real trouble, try to fix your wife. But don’t try to fix her because she may be broken yourself. Listen to her. Peacemaking. She wants you to say I’m sorry. It’s okay to say I’m sorry. Loyalty. She needs to know you’re committed.

Esteem. She wants you to honor and cherish her. Love your wife as she wants. But wives, also, we need to understand that you need to give him the respect he desires. Conquest. Appreciate his desire to work and achieve. Hierarchy. Appreciate his desire to protect and provide. Authority. Appreciate his desire to serve and lead. Insight, appreciate his desire to analyze and counsel. Relationship. Appreciate his desire for shoulder-to-shoulder relationship. Sexuality, appreciate his desire for sexual intimacy. When you look at this, you’re saying these seem to be just things you can go through. It’s work to do these things. It takes work. Marriage is going to take work. It’s going to cost something. It means that your life is changed forever to live the type of life that’s there.

It really means that you have unconditional love in Ephesians 5th chapter and verse 33. But life in marriage goes through different cycles. First cycle I call the crazy cycle. The crazy cycle is without love, she reacts. Without respect, he reacts. All of a sudden, you got conflict going on. You’re reacting to things instead of that. There’s only two ways to think, folks. One is factual and one is emotional. When you start thinking emotional and let it overcome the factual, you’re going to have problems in your life, and then that happens in many marriages. We also see the energy energizing cycle. His love motivates her, her respect motivates him. They want both of that, and they both agree to give that to each other, and it motivates them, it energizes that marriage.

Then there is the rewarded cycle. Regardless of his love, wives, you continue to give him the respect and care that he needs. Husbands, regardless of her respect, you love her. That’s God’s word. One man, one woman for life. Then as you move on, the husband.

But the purpose of all the scriptures up here for this lesson is this. Impress upon us how serious the marriage relationship is, how many times it’s dealt with in the scriptures by all these scriptures that we’re going to show. It’s not something to be taken lightly. That’s why I go back and say, if you’re in an unscriptural marriage now, where you’ve married an unqualified person, or you were unqualified, and the person married you, you best straighten that out. Your soul depends upon you straightening that out. And when we look at these things right here, we get down to where the husband must praise his wife in Proverbs 31. And that’s the story of what we call the worthy woman, right? And we see we can’t be content with the wife of his youth.

I tell people jokingly that my wife is about worth dating again now after 56 years. Now don’t take that the wrong way. I’m just saying we’re finally getting to know each other. If we can remember each other’s names at our age, we really begin to know each other. And we’re doing things that we’ve never done before together. We’re facing old age together. And let me tell you, I don’t know how I’d face the old age without my wife. We’ve had our health issues, we’ve had different things happen in life. But if you don’t have a good spouse in the right relationship according to God, getting old is not going to be fun. I pray that you’re able to get old with your spouse. We are able to do that and enjoy every bit of it.

We’ve been married 56 years. And I tell you, we still joke around a little bit. We can talk about things now. And we may talk, we may talk about going over to Ralph and Vicky’s tonight tomorrow, and kind of say, you know, we went over to their house last night and we may talk for an hour about that and forget their names. But we know who we’re talking about. And you look at those type things. That is the beautiful thing. Be content with the wife of his youth. Love your wife as Christ loved the church in Ephesians 5 back over there. Husbands, love your wives. It’s simple. It’s the scriptures. Love your wife just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. That he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

Love your wife. Do not be bitter toward your wife. There is a way to go things. Here’s the way that starts bitterness. You walk into your wife and say, You know what your problem is? That’s going to bring a loving response, isn’t it? If it’s not a frying pan upside your head. Honey, I think we’ve got some things to talk about. I’m having a little trouble with this. Are you having any trouble with this? I thought I noticed you might be having trouble with this, and I’m having trouble with this. Do not be bitter toward your wife. Don’t attack your wife. But for the wife, we think about her, let her be trustworthy. Trust your wife. We have a thing called Life 360. Our kids put it on.

I think they put it on so they could track us. But they put it on Dad, you can track mom when she’s out because you never know at her age. Or mom, you can track dad if we’re here. Because you never know at his age if they get lost or not, you’d be able to track them. And sometimes that comes up, and I go, do they not trust us to drive anymore? What’s the problem? Be your wife the trustworthy. I always think about this and think trustworthy. Things we can do to be trusting, have an enduring love. I’ve often said, and I believe this entirely, sometimes like leaves a relationship before love does. And what we don’t understand is like can lead us to make irrational, emotional decisions.

We love one another. The love drives us straight. I will tell you this. Back in the spring, Connie had some health issues. The hospital sent me home to plan her funeral.

My kids were brave. They said, Dad, go home and do what they say. Ever think about planning your spouse’s funeral? Some of you may have lost spouses. I went home and thought about all the things that went on in the 56 years we’ve been married. I wasn’t ready for that to end. And I thought, we got to get over this. We got to get gone. But the one thing I knew was if Connie wasn’t going to make it, he wouldn’t want me to stop living. He’d want me to continue to be faithful and serving the Lord and remember what she had taught me all through these years. And I look at that and say, You learn from your wife that way. Develop an inner person for the wife.

4. Things That Make Your Marriage Work

Speak wisdom and kindness, not be contentious. The relationship between the husband and wife is an amazing relationship that God wants to flourish. He wants it to work. And all these passages of scripture show that how important it was to the Lord. But then about their reputation. Guard their reputation and their name.

Some of them are in this congregation. Now I want to tell you in the Lord’s church, there are amazing things that you look at and see.

But for a couple, guard their name and reputation. But my father once told me as we was driving some appliances down to Connie’s mother, who was a widow, on the way down, he had just retired from some secular work. He was preaching for years. We did secular work also. And he told me, he said, son, I hope you don’t expect and expect a big inheritance. And I thought, he’s been hiding money all these years, and I didn’t know about it. And what he was saying was, but I’m going to leave you a name that’s worth something more than money. And he did. And I look at that and think, we need to think about guarding our reputation, our name. Be accountable to one another. Own up.

Be that way. Talk to one another. Communicate with one another. Practice forgiveness. But most importantly, practice honesty. Be honest with one another. That’s the reputation. But also practice reverence. We went through some troublesome times. And Connie’s a very strong person in her faith. Came from a wonderful family, a father that was an elder. We went through some troubled times in the late 90s in business and stuff. She came to me, we had a child, a grandchild born that had Down syndrome, and later we would find autism also. And she said to me, She says, My faith is slipping. Now, husband, I want to point something out. Remember what I said yesterday? When I go this far over, that’s called a sidebar, right? I want to tell you about a sidebar.

Men, if you’re the husband, the head of your household, you will be held spiritually in judgment for how spiritual your household is.

Are you leading it spiritually as you should? Did you lead it spiritually as you should? So my wife comes to me and says, My faith is slipping. Immediately I thought to myself, I know I’m going through issues, but I’m the spiritual leader of this household. How do I get my wife’s faith back to where it should be? How do I make sure we as a family don’t fall apart? How do we do that? One of the things that I can remember thinking about that was practice reverence. No matter what situation we’re going through in this world, God has got it taken care of for us, no matter what it is. Whatever happened to our little grandchild who had holes in his heart, God’s got it in his hand.

The battle is something we can’t do. Practice contentment. This is what it is. I’ll get through it. Practice respect. I respect each other, and I respect the fact that the Lord’s word is true. Communicate. Oh me, communicate. I married a girl from Kentucky down around. She lived in Louisville, but she’s from Kiltown. And I can only use mine as an example because I’m not married to anybody else. I use mine. So we moved Indianapolis when we were younger. We lived in an apartment. I came home one day for lunch. I said, How are you doing, hon? She says, I can’t turn anything off. Where’s the switch? And I’ll fix the switch. We’ll get this turned off. What’s on? I said, What are you talking about? I said, Well, you said you couldn’t turn anything off.

Is there a light on, a fan on? What is it? I’ll work on while I’m home. He says, No, I worked all morning and I can’t get anything accomplished. Well, what’s that mean about turning things off? He said, Well, that’s the saying we have at home. So I had to learn new language. And some of it was very foreign to me. But communicate. And some of that language is still out there that every now and then she’ll say something, we go, What? But you communicate one with another. And so we see in the marriage relationship, all these things I’ve just said, I want to get across to you, is it’s things that make your marriage work. Things you do to make sure that man and that or that husband and wife, the one you married, you work it.

You don’t just give up on it. There’s going to be hardships. If I was to ask the question, who here that is married hadn’t had a discussion with their spouse about something, and you raised your hand, I’d probably say you’re a lie about other things too. Because we’re going to have disagreements. And you have to work them out. Some of those things you have to talk through, you’ve got to work those things out. You’ve got to communicate. You’ve got to practice the fact that you’re the husband and are the wife, and you’re working on these things together. You’ve got to do that. Now I’ve got something to ask you. I showed several things up here on several slides. There were scriptures under every one of them.

I don’t know if any of you, I know some of you took pictures of the slides. You think this is not important to the Lord? Look how many scriptures pertain to the marriage relationship. Why? Go to Ephesians 5 again. The reason is because it’s like the Lord and his church. It’s the same example they’re using. The Lord and his church. And we look at this, he wants this church, his body to be pure and spotless, no wrinkle, without without blemish and holy. And so I look at that and say to myself, the next verse says, husbands ought to love their own wives as their own body. He who loves his wife loves himself. Ben, how many of us love our wife like we love ourselves? We’re supposed to.

That’s what we’re supposed to do in marriage. And then he comes on down and he says, Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Verse 33 gives us a secret. Husbands, we gotta love. We have to love. That’s the Lord’s command. Love. Now there might be some times that that light suffers a little bit, but love is there. It’s deeper. It carries us through the periods of time that maybe she irritates you, maybe it’s that way, maybe you irritate her, but that’s not anything other than two people trying to get along. And when you get married, I brought 18 years to 19 years living with my parents in our traditions, and she brought 18 to 19 years of living with her parents and her traditions.

It takes a while to get all those out of our system. And I’m telling you, I learned to eat things I’ve never eaten before. And I thought to myself, she doesn’t cook like my mother. She’s a great cook. And then when you’re eating sometime and she grabs the plate out in front of you and say, It’s not worth eating tonight. You’re not going to eat this. What am I going to eat? Well, we got peanut butter. And sometimes you have to look at that and you have to trust the wife on this. If she doesn’t, and she’s a great cook, if she doesn’t think it’s worth eating, someone went wrong, it’s not worth eating. So a product of marriage, though, that occurs is when she calls and says, We’re pregnant.

And you go, huh?

5. What Kind of Father Will I Be?

We’ve been married about three years, and I’m going, I’m going to be a father. You ever go back and think that way, man, that have been married a while? I’m going to be a father. That changes everything. Not only do I have a wife to take care of, I’m going to have children to watch out over. I had no doubt my wife was ready for children 16 years before I was. I was way behind on this book. And I thought to myself, what does that mean? It means there’s a blessing of children. And I loved little children, but me being a father, I thought, what’s this going to do? I could take my role as a husband. My dad and my mom had drilled that into me, what it should be.

Still had work to do there. He was even better prepared to be a wife than I was a husband. She was much more mature in those things. Then I remember some things that I started thinking about. Some of these slides come back from some things I thought about way back then. One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. It’s an old English proverb. It is a wise father that knows his children. Shakespeare. I did not like school. I mentioned that tonight. I didn’t like school. I went to school to play ball. Why they had books and learning there, I have no idea. I was there for ball. But some of the things I remember things being taught to me in Bible classes and in classes about this stuff.

And I remember something like this. A father is always making his baby into a little woman. When he is a woman, he turns her back again. And when she is a woman, he turns her back again. His little girl. An old statement. But then this statement popped up. And this is a later statement. I watched a small man with a thick calluses on both hands. Work 15 and 16 hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottom of his feet. Man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by simple eloquence of his example. Now, Stefan, I’m going to use you here for a second. I look at that and say to myself, I met him tonight, I’ve heard about him.

Take that statement. I know you’re here. You have a struggle with English. I know that. But Mario Como made this statement about his dad, that can be you. Because I know you’re a hard worker, you go through tough times. But I look at that and say, what an amazing situation it is. And then you kind of look at this and say, What kind of father will I be? Now, for us that have been fathers a while, I want you to think about back on this and say, What kind of father am I? What kind of father am I? What kind of father will I be? What kind of father am I? So you think about that. And my favorite passage is what David was telling to Solomon.

And this is a wonderful passage. He said to Solomon, as for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father. Serve him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands the intent of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you. But if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever. So I think about that and think, what a wonderful passage. Can you imagine David telling that to his son? I can remember some statements that my father made to me, but I look at this statement and say, What a what a statement made about serving the Lord. And when you think about serving the Lord this way, I think you have to look at it and say, No, serve, loyal heart, willing mind, searches all hearts and understands.

But if you seek him, if you seek him, he will be found by you. You’ll find him. So one of the things that I think of is that we have to teach our children to seek the Lord. Then we have to have faith, because the Lord will find them if they’re seeking.

So to know God is nothing more important in life. Over in Jeremiah, the ninth chapter, verses 23 and 24. Jeremiah is a wonderful passage of scripture to understand patience and perseverance, because he preached for over 40 years to a group that wouldn’t listen to him. But in Jeremiah 9, 23 24, thus says the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches, but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight, says the Lord. Displeasing not to know him. In Judges 2 10, there is a generation that grew up not knowing the Lord.

So, fathers, this comes back to us. If I’m the spiritual leader of my house, and I’m going to be a father, or I am a father, I need to make sure my children are taught to seek the Lord, to know the Lord, serve him with the willing heart. That’s my responsibility to do. Raise that child up, train that child, keep that child focused. Now I’m going to tell you something. You don’t do that by making the best baseball player in the world. You don’t do that by making the best singer in the world. You do that by making him the best Christian you can make him. You work with him and work. He can have all the degrees, have all the trophies, but if he misses heaven, he has missed everything God has planned for that child.

And you have done an injustice to that child in race. Now that’s pretty blunt, but that’s just the facts of life according to the scripture. And what we need to understand is when we think about taking that child and taking them out of Bible classes, taking them out of worship services, to do social events like that, we are taking in and weakening the spirituality of that child. And we ourselves are becoming spiritually weak too. We’re giving in and we’re conforming to the world, not transformed. That’s hard. I played ball all day in high school. Never missed a worship service, never missed a Bible study. I missed games. I didn’t miss any of that other. My sisters were very popular. They didn’t miss anything for Bible study or worship.

They came to worship in Bible study. We turned out all right, I think. Now Connie may disagree on some of that, but I think we turned out all right. But I’ll tell you what I see in the world today that is driving me crazy. More and more who say they are faithful Christians, keeping their children away from the Bible studies, the worship services, participate in social activities and games and things like that, thinking they got to grow up socially in the world. We do have to grow up socially in the world. But we’re not to be conformed to the world. And I certainly don’t want to be the father or grandfather that helps conform them to the world. I want to help transform them from difference from this world and have a be following Jesus Christ.

Displeasing to God not to know him. So there are generations going to grow up not knowing the Lord. Hosea talks about my people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge. I sometimes wonder if it’s a lack of knowledge or self-will. We might have heard it preached, we might have said it ourselves, we might have read it in the book, but it doesn’t fit what our plan is for our family. We want our family to be this way. Lack of knowledge means that we don’t have the knowledge of the scripture. Displeasing to not know him means to not obey him. I looked at Romans 1, 18 through 28 is a passage of scripture that deals with it. And I think about that and think we’re to know God.

But not only are we to have our children know God, we’re to serve God with a loyal heart, with wholehearted devotion. And it’s our way to show we understand the greatest commandment. What’s the greatest commandment? Love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul. What’s the second? To love our neighbor. Same way. I look at this and say to myself, what love are we teaching them for God if we don’t sit down and study with the Bible at home with them? We don’t sit down and ask them questions about the Bible. If we don’t try to teach them, and there are times I did a lot of traveling when our children were raised, and Connie did a great job while I was gone.

But I think about this, and there are times that we give the Pat answer because I say so. Wrong answer, folks, because the scriptures say this. Why do we go to services on Wednesday night? Because the scriptures say this. Why do we go to services on Sunday morning, Sunday night? The scriptures say this. Why do we do this? The scriptures say this. Why are we visiting the sick? The scriptures say this. What are we trying to do with our children? With a wholehearted devotion. Greatest way to show the commandment we believe in. So we’re to serve God, but we’re to seek God. It’s the whole duty of man. Seek him first in his kingdom. All these things will be right, will be added unto you. This is the whole duty of man, Ecclesiastes 12.

Seek God, serve God. Willing heart, loyal heart. Do that. Fathers, that’s what we were supposed to do. But how will they remember me? Fathers, how are they going to remember us? I think of that and think, are they going to remember the fact that got whooped all the time or put in time now?

I wouldn’t have been able to sit in a timeout. I was a son of a World War II sergeant. He didn’t believe in timeouts. He believed in solving the problem now. Then it was a situation where we’ll talk about it later. But you’re going to get taught right now, then you’re going to get what’s coming to you. We have timeouts. I don’t even know what that means, Sean. Take a time out. How will they remember me? Godly fathers need to consider this daily. When they open their Bibles, let them remember me as one who taught them about God’s word. People will ask me about my dad. My dad preached for over 60 years. He was a gentle fellow, had a big heart, but he was a sergeant.

He was an elder for many years also. He could be gruff, but he was very, very dedicated to the Lord’s work. He never wanted to preach at a large congregation. He said, I’m a soldier. I’m going to fight Satan in the trenches out in the country, out in those places. Not that he didn’t get asked to preach at a large congregation. He just said, that’s not me. I’m not a big name preacher. He said, I’m a big preacher. He weighed about 250. He said I’m a big preacher, but I’m not a big name preacher. So in the hills of Kentucky and the hills of Indiana, he was well known for what he did in his work. But I can honestly tell you I’m preaching because of him.

He’s the one that called me on a Tuesday night and said, What are you doing Sunday? Well, I’m going to services.

He said, No, I think you’re going to preach at Hodgesville, Kentucky. I was 21 years old, had never preached in my life. What do you mean I’m going to preach at Hodgesville, Kentucky? Well, it’s time for you to start preaching. I wrote up ten hand pages, ten pages by hand on Parable of the Ten Virgins. I thought, I don’t know how they’re going to handle all the baptism. We get done. I got up to preach. Connie got the number out of the invitation in the book, put the book up, grabbed the book, pulled it back up, studied for invitation song. She said it sounded like an auction. At the end, it was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You want to be saved? It lasted about four minutes.

It wasn’t very long at all. Now I’ve had people pray that that would last again, and I’d have that kind of ready recollection for only four minute sermons, but it’s one of those things. And I look at that, but I remember my dad, the reason I’m preaching, because I told Vicky and Ralph, I didn’t plan on preaching when I went to Florida College. I’m preaching because my dad said, son, you can do it. And I’ll tell you what’s interesting. Our youngest son, who’s 47 or 48 now, the deacon of the congregation, and they were in between preachers. And we find out he’s going to give a sermon. So we drove up there to listen to him. I told him, I said, there’s a preacher in the family, but it’s not me, it’s you.

6. Reflections on Mothers

And he doesn’t preach full time at all. He said, Dad, I never thought I would do it. He said, you know what? They needed someone to do it, and I’m a member of this congregation, and surely I can tell people what I did to obey the gospel. He’s a great speaker. What do we want to remember? And who do we want to remember? Taught us the word of God. Well, what about reflections on mothers? It is sad to have to list this list like this, but abortions, neglecting, abuse, abandoned, killing, selling. Why doesn’t my mommy love me? I just want my mommy to love. I think about that and think, in our society today, it’s commonplace for children not to be loved. And I think, how can that be?

We were coming down here on the plane. Connie and I get two aisles on Southwest. It’s not that we don’t mind sitting by each other, but we like to be on the aisles because we might have to get up and go to the laboratory. So we get don’t want to crawl over people. So we get those two aisle seats. And we watched the kids coming in, they’re going down to Disney World. They’re all excited. So I asked this one little girl, I said, Are you going down to Disney World? Her mother says they’re going to go see Grandma and Grandpa. I said, That’s better than Disney World. She said. And I thought to myself, that’s what we have as a relationship. But mothers, you’ve got a lot of responsibility on your plate.

Now I look at this and think about some quotes. Mildred Vermont said, Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salary jobs since the payment is pure love. My children are older. One’s 54, let’s see, one’s 53. Sorry, I don’t make her older than that. She’s a girl. 53, one’s 50, one’s 48. When Connie was in the hospital and weren’t sure they were going to make it, they made sure there was a prayer going on regularly. They surrounded their mother and their father and took care of them. And I thought to myself, grandchildren came in, see grandmom. And I thought to myself, and then the nurses did too. They made comments about it, and even the doctors. We’ve never seen this in all our years of a family that surrounded a mother like this and a grandmother.

Prayers, talking about her and holding her hand and talking her through her unconsciousness. Basically, she did not know who we were. And one of the nurses said, I hope I’m around to meet her. Didn’t think she’s going to make it. When they came in after she was making improvements, he introduced herself to Connie and said, I wanted to meet you. I didn’t think I ever would, but I wanted to be able to talk to you. And I’m not praising, I’m just saying this is the only example I’ve got. But I look at this and say, all that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. I saw my three kids surround their mother. This is what I saw. They thought everything that she had done for them, the love she had for them, and they returned that love for her.

And I want us to think about us older ones that have had to bury our parents and take care of our parents. They took care of us. That’s the type of parents we need to be now to where our children are going to look at it and say, Yes, it’s a burden, but it’s a light burden to take care of us. We never know the love of the parent until we become parents ourselves. This heart, my own dear mother, bends with love’s true instinct. Back to thee, Thomas Moore said. A mother is a person who seen there are only four pieces of pie to give to five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. I love that one. That is great.

I get mine first.

They run out. Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to jump at the sun. We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground. Isn’t that a wonderful statement? But I think about the godly mothers, the mother of Moses. Loved him so much, knew he would be sacrificed if she didn’t take care of that, put him in a basket, put him in the water, then ended up watching Pharaoh’s daughter gather him up and ended up taking care of him. Think about Samuel’s mother. Praying, if she just had a baby, she would give him to the Lord. I think about those things, and it just tears my heart up. I think about the Gentile mother or the Gentile mother of Matthew the 15th chapter.

And turn over to Matthew the 15th chapter. This is a wonderful story here. Gentile mother that’s speaking out and her love she had of what was going on. In verses 21, beginning. Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Behold, a woman of Canaan came to the region and cried out to him, saying, Have mercy on me. Notice this, have mercy on me, O Lord. Son of David, my daughter is severely demon possessed. But he answered her not a word, and the disciples came and urged him, saying, Send her away, for she cries out after us. But he answered and said, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And I’ll stop right there and say, that I need Jesus.

Then she came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. More of us need to be on our knees at times, saying, Lord, help me through. I’m not strong enough to do this. Lord help me. He answered and said, It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it into the little dogs. And she said, Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master’s table. Then Jesus answered and said to her, Notice what he says, O woman, great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire, and your daughter and her daughter was healed from that very hour. What a story that is of the faith of a mother that went to Jesus Christ to get her daughter healed.

We owe godly mothers so much. They’re very special. Remember what went on when Paul was telling Timothy over in 2 Timothy, the first chapter? And he talks to him about where he learned the scriptures, about who he learned them from. And I think of that and think many times, mothers and grandmothers, we overlook who they really are and what impressions they can have. Now I’m not saying grandfathers can’t have that either, but mothers and grandmothers have a way with children. We used to have vacation Bible school at Greenwood, the six grandchildren that were able to come, because the seventh was special needs. The six of they would come and spend the whole week with us. And it was very interesting. They did that for several years.

I don’t remember how many.

Now that they’re married and older, they know what Connie did with him and what we did together as a family during that week of vacation Bible school, staying in our house, doing activities with them. But Timothy is telling, or Paul’s telling Timothy to remember some things. Now notice what he says in 2 Timothy 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, a beloved son. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing.

Greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy. When I call to remembrance, notice this, the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, I am persuaded in you also. Let me ask this, mothers, grandmothers. Would Paul say that to you about your grandchildren? Would he say, I am I can remember where they got this from, who taught them? Look over in 2 Timothy 3 10 through 17. He tells Timothy to remember who taught him those scriptures. Did they say that about you? That you sit down with them, taught them the truth, help them understand what they needed to be doing. We understand this. Timothy was taught, Lois was an example of a godly grandmother, Eunice was an example of a godly mother.

Conclusion

What was Timothy taught? To have genuine faith. The Holy Scriptures will make one wise for salvation. Holy Scriptures given by the inspiration of God. Holy scriptures are holy scriptures are profitable. Holy Scriptures make our complete, make us complete, thoroughly equipped. From that childhood have been known fully the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Godly mothers, her children rise up, call her blessed. What’s it take to make it work? The Lord says he hates divorce. What does it take in a changing world? Remember, eternal principles never change. There’s two things that you need to take from this lesson. One is, is the very first point, and I mean to get this across, and I hope I have.

Need to change and repent now. Need to work with the elders on how to do that. Ezra had faced that back in the Old Testament when the children of Israel taking pagan wives. They had to rid themselves of the pagan wives. It took time to do, but they had to work it out. We’re here to save souls. I would think if you ask any of the elders, if you ask J.R. or Sean, this congregation is here to teach the truth to save souls. It may not be a popular truth, but it’s the truth from God’s word. Heed that warning and straighten your life up so that you can go to heaven. In a changing world that maybe we conform to, eternal principles never change. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

There’s our slide about the end of the lesson, God’s plan for your salvation. If you’re here and you’re not a member of the Lord’s body, we encourage you to look over this slide, think about it, and ask questions about it. We’re here to ready to help you at any time to obey the gospel. I’m just visiting here, but you’ve got two young, two younger men. Didn’t know that was coming, did you, Sean? Two younger men that can uphold the gospel, and you got a good group of elders. I’m telling you right now, nothing is more important than going to heaven. If you’re a family night, life needs to be straightened out. Do it tonight. If you’re in an unscriptural marriage, straighten that out tonight. Heaven awaits those who obey and yield themselves to God.

If you need to come to the gospel call of Christ, come right now while we stand and sing.