The Importance of Godly Influence and Broadcast Outreach

SPEAKER 01 : 0:00

A couple of weeks ago, actually when Allie had jury duty, she brought home with her a book, one of the other members of the jury gave her, the little book, The Prayer of Jabez, which nearly everybody in this dog has heard about by now. And since I had been asked about it so many times, I decided, well, I probably should read a book because I can’t really comment intelligently on a book until I have read it. Well, I read it, and I have done a book review on it, which I’ll be publishing on the web, in which you’ll get a letter probably within three or four weeks from now, talking about it or introducing a sermon that I gave, which is a kind of a book review. I can’t really endorse the book, The Prayer of Jabez, but at the same time, I picked up a couple of thoughts in it. that I hadn’t really thought about before. One of them was his point about asking God, the first point it is, to bless me without telling God what you wanted Him to bless you for. In other words, why should I tell God, bless me with this, this, this, and this, and leave out this over here that I don’t even know about? That would be a very important blessing that God might give me if He’s of a mind to do so. That was one of his points was the open-ended, bless me, and I’m willing to take whatever blessing you give, and I’m willing to let go whatever it is you don’t bother giving me. The second point he mentioned was this part of the prayer of Jabez where Jabez asked God to enlarge his territory or to enlarge his borders. And I hadn’t thought anything much about it. Of course, I had never paid much attention to the prayer of Jabez at all until I read the book. But his point, as he made it, was that you are asking God to enlarge your influence or your ability or your opportunity to have an influence on other people. And I hadn’t thought of that quite that way before. And the request to God to enlarge our territory, to enlarge our borders, to allow us to have more influence, I thought that’s a reasonable thing to ask God for, is God enlarge our borders, make us bigger, not for our own sake, but for your name’s sake and for the things that we can do for you. So I thought, that’s a reasonable thing for me to ask God, so I did. Well, just a matter of a few days after that, we got a call from Salem Broadcasting. And Salem Broadcasting was offering us the chance to try something new that they were beginning to do on one of their satellite uplinks. They feed three different styles of Christian music out to 255 different Christian stations around the country. So all they do, when you’re listening to the Christian music on these stations, you are listening to a satellite feed that comes from one or more of the major providers for these stations. They are not just sitting there putting discs on there and playing records for you at the local station. Well, what Salem is now beginning to do is they are offering short time slots in that music program, the three different kinds of music program, that you can put in a one-minute, two-minute, five-minute message or whatever it is that you’d like to put in those slots, and they offered us the opportunity since it’s kind of experimental for them, it’d be experimental for us, to place a two-minute program, or we could probably do more or less if we wanted to, but we’re going to do two minutes, to do a two-minute program on their station. And If this opportunity had come to us probably a month ago, I probably would have turned it down because I felt we have enough to do, we have enough complications in our life, we’re busy as one-armed paper hangers, the old saying goes. We don’t need anything else, and I really prefer the program where I don’t have to tell the person, write to me so I can tell you. I can tell you right on the air, which with a 30-minute program I can do. But I thought to myself when this offer came down that, well, maybe this is an answer to prayer. Maybe this is where God wants us to go, and therefore I would feel remiss if we don’t have a run at it. And it’s one of those, we didn’t call them, they called us, and the opportunity was dropped on us. So we will be beginning within probably two weeks. We’ll probably have the first of these up. with them, they will be played more or less at random on the 255 stations that are subscribed to these programs. They fall in the categories of Southern Gospel, Traditional Christian, and Today’s Christian Music Today, which is what you hear on our 530 program here in Tyler on 102.3. That’s what that station is. In fact, it’s one of the stations on this network. That’s where they get their music is from Salem Broadcasting. So you may, across the country, be accidentally somewhere, if you listen to these stations, hear a short two-minute program from Born to Win about whatever it is I decide I’ll finally do these programs about. And I did three this past week that I am probably going to redo next Wednesday because we have had time to… to get the feeling for it, think it through, and decide how best we want to approach it. So I don’t know. I would appreciate your prayers because I don’t have any idea. Is this something God really wants us to do? It’s going to require more of us, not only in the production of the programs, but in the follow-up. on this group of people, which will be different, have to be different, from the normal follow-up we use because this audience will be much less informed about Born to Win, Christian Educational Ministries, and our tradition than an audience that listens to the program or can listen to it, you know, every day or for 30 minutes or at least once a week for 30 minutes where they get the full… nine yards of whatever it is we have to say on that subject. So we’re excited about it. We’re glad to have the opportunity, and we’re going to go for it. We just don’t have any idea what the results will be. We’re just going to trust that it’s the right thing to do. Then last week we got another call. This one from Crawford Broadcasting. Salem and Crawford are the two biggest, I think, probably Christian broadcasting networks in the country. I don’t know if anybody else is even in the ballpark, are they? Salem’s number one, but Crawford’s may not be number two. May not be number two, okay. May not be number three. They’re big, anyway, and Crawford seemed to like our program. They have called us on several programs, having stations that we’ve got, rather than us having to go looking for them. I think they like the program for several reasons. One is it’s extremely professional. Our program is as professional as anything they ever hear. It never embarrasses the station. It helps to build their audience. It doesn’t cost them an audience like some programs would. You listen to some programs, let me out of here. But our program doesn’t do that to them. And then probably last of all, maybe not the least, we pay our bills on time. And not all religious organizations do that. So that’s probably one reason why they like us. Well, anyway, they called us this last week and offered us 1 o’clock every day, Monday through Friday, on KCBC San Francisco. This is in the greater San Francisco area. This is the number three market in the country. It’s a 50,000-watt station, 770 on the dial. If you want to get an idea of the coverage, it would be very similar in California to what – 820 on the dial out of Fort Worth, WBAP Fort Worth would be. 50,000 watt, 820, similar dial spot, and the lower you are on the dial, the better off you are as far as propagation of your signal. And their tower is on a mountain to the east of San Francisco and covers all of California, all the way from really Redding in the north to Santa Barbara in the south, and it covers everything on the coast of California that we don’t get with KBRT out of Los Angeles. But this one is daily. Plus, they’re going to give us a bonus free program on Sunday night at 6. On Saturday night, we don’t know exactly what time it will be, but we will be on 1 o’clock, 770 on the AM dial, Monday through Friday at 50,000-watt station KCBC out of San Francisco. And we were very pleased about that. It’s the number three market in the country. And every step that we have made in the past, every effort we have made to try to break into big markets has not been terribly successful. The one exception is KBRT in Los Angeles. Number one market? Number one market, I thought it was. Huh? It was number two. Number two market. And we’re in the number two and number three markets now in the country with the Born to Win program. But Los Angeles is only once a week. We have not been able to break through down there daily. But in Central California, we will do quite well there, I think. One of the reasons I like this station is the coverage of it in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. These are big agricultural areas. These are the areas where all the Okies went, you know, after the great Dust Bowl thing. And you have a very stable country music listening, salt of the earth type of people in Southern California, in Central California. There are the kind of people who respond to our program. The problem with many markets, if it was a local San Francisco station, that population is fairly heavily Asian. And you’re paying for reaching that audience just like all the rest of them. And that audience would probably not be terribly responsive to the Born to Win program. But This station, where it’s located and the coverage it gets, I think will do very well for us. They made us an offer we couldn’t refuse, and so we… Didn’t refuse it. All this is coming, by the way, at a time when CEM probably has the tightest budget that we’ve had since we started up. But we feel that we can make it, and we should do it. We should have a go at it. We may have to cancel some other stuff to do it. But nevertheless, when the door opens, you’ve got to take a shot at it, which is exactly what we’re doing. That wasn’t the sermon, but that is something I thought that you would find interesting and certainly important to us. And to all of you out there on the tape program, we’d really appreciate your prayers and your support that God would continue to enlarge our borders and help us to reach more people and change more lives. Across this country, there’s a lot of hand-wringing about the meltdown of the nuclear family. And it isn’t just the divorce problem, big as that is. Young people are more wary of marriage than they used to be, and they’re not getting married until much later. That just crept up on me. I had not realized it because there was a time when I was concerned that people were getting married too young. But now the average age for men is 27. The average age for women getting married is 25. And then after they get married, they’re putting off having children for quite some time. And a lot of times these children are not being born until women are in their 30s with the attendant health problems and risk to the child that this entails. Women are not as well equipped for having children after they pass 30 as they are in their early 20s. Everybody, I think, is aware of that. The number of homes headed by single moms is growing five times faster than homes that are headed by a married couple. Five times faster. More and more couples are shacking up instead of getting married. And since one form of conduct in our modern world is deemed no better than any other, political correctness requires that society approve of whatever lifestyle people may choose. And since there’s no disapproval, since there are no standards, since there’s no merit for doing things one way or the other way, well, kids are doing better. Young people are doing what feels good or what seems to suit them on the surface at the moment and which in the long run may be very bad for society. The end result of it is the slow destruction of the nuclear family as a social institution. And the question I guess we could ask is, is that important? Does it really matter? Should we even care one way or the other about the destruction of the nuclear family? Kids are still being born, you know. Kids are still coming into our society, whether the moms are married or single or what have you. Does it make any difference? Well, if there is no God, I suppose it doesn’t. I suppose if there is no God, it only makes a difference if you can statistically show it makes a difference, or if you can prove somehow it makes a difference, or if you can, you know, if there’s something you can show from experience that it makes a difference. But otherwise, we’re on our own. But since we believe there is a God, I think it’s worth stopping for a moment to ask the questions that he would ask us on this issue. And so I want you to turn back with me, if you have your Bible, to Genesis, the second chapter, and let’s consider the idea of the family from the very beginning. Genesis 2, verse 7. The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. The Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, good for the food, the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And all that makes stories after stories after stories. But I’m going to come down to verse 15. The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And he commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it, for in the day you eat thereof you shall surely die. Then he said something truly profound. He said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a help suitable for him. Now basically what we have here is the testimony of God who made man. And we’re starting on the assumption that we have a creator, someone who created us, who made us, designed us from the beginning. And the one who designed man said it is not good that man should be alone. We were not made to be on our own. We were not made to be mountain men living off somewhere by ourselves with no help, nobody around us, no friends, no acquaintances, no wife, no someone to fill in the gaps in our life to be different from us. I will make him a help suitable for him. Now out of the ground the Lord had formed every beast of the field, every fowl of the air, and he had brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And Adam named every living creature. He gave names to every beast of the field. But among all these, it’s funny, the way the King James is worded, it almost sounds like God said, man needs a help. Let’s see, I’ll try cows. No. Dogs? No, not really. Cats? No. You know, ran down the whole gamut. Just couldn’t really find a help suitable. That’s not really what this is about. The Lord then said, since there’s no suitable help for man here, he caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and he closed up the flesh instead thereof. And it’s really worth stopping for a moment to ask ourselves the question, why didn’t God make man and woman at the same time out of the same dirt? It’s worth asking, because he didn’t. He could have very easily gotten down in the dirt, formed his man, formed his woman, breathed breath of life into both of them at the same time, and started them off both on equal footing. Didn’t do that. Well, there is perhaps a reason which he talks about in this. He said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. I believe the King James Version says, and they shall be one flesh. The Gospel accounts of it quote the Septuagint Version, which says they too shall be one flesh. Septuagint, the Vulgate, and several other ancient manuscripts of Hebrew say that the word two is mentioned. They too shall be one flesh, and they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Now, the point seems to be, That woman is so close to man that she is taken as a part of man. And it is only that man can only become complete again by union with a woman. That a man becomes complete when he has that help suitable for him that God designed. He said she was taken out of my flesh. She’ll be called woman because she was taken out of man. It is not good for man to be alone. Two made one. And that is what family is all about. This is where the whole thing starts. Not just marriage, per se. Although marriage is the fundamental unit of the family. That’s the beginning point for the whole thing. But this begins family. Two made one. So, Jesus then comes along and affirms this very same principle. Matthew 19, verse 3. The Pharisees came to Jesus, tempting him. And they said, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? Now, this is an ongoing debate among the Jews at this time. What reasons can you give for divorce? Does there have to be any? Or can you just, I don’t like this woman anymore. I’ve had enough of her. I’m going to put her away. I don’t want to have to live with her anymore. And, of course, vice versa. You could ask the same question. He answered and said to them, Haven’t you read that he that made them at the beginning made them male and female and said, For this cause shall man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. So they are no more two. This is important. He goes on to say, they are no more two. They are now one flesh. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. Now, Jesus really set the Pharisees back on their heels, and I could go on off into that particular vein, but I’m going to pass that up for today because I’ve addressed it at some length in an article titled, Is There Life After Divorce? But the point simply is, when they ask him the question, Can you divorce your wife for any cause? Jesus said, No. Plainly, No. He said, God made them male and female. He put them together, and he said, What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. But the question I want to ask you today is, is why. Sure, we know God did this. We know God that took woman’s, you know, made woman out of a rib he took for man. That man and woman were to leave father and mother, be cleaved to one another, and to become one flesh, and never to be put asunder. Why? That is the question. Now, there’s a prophecy in Malachi that I think is somewhat revealing in this regard. Malachi’s prophecy comes out of a historical perspective. Israel has come back out of captivity. They have rebuilt something, you know, a house of worship. The priests are beginning to have Holy Day services again. The priests have begun to serve God again. The problem is all is not good in paradise. There are serious, severe problems in the priesthood and among God’s people at the time they came back into Israel after their captivity. And I want us to go to Malachi, the second chapter, and to read this segment about what God has to say to the priests at that time. Now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If you will not listen… If you won’t lay it to heart to give glory to my name, saith the Lord of hosts, then I will send a curse on you. I’ll not only send a curse on you, I will curse your blessings. In other words, you stand up in front of the people and say, well, the Lord bless you and keep you. He said, I’m going to put a curse on whoever you bless. Not a very nice thing to have happen, but that’s what he says he’s going to do. I’m going to curse your blessings. I’ll bless your cursings. He said, yeah, in fact, I have cursed them already because you will not lay it to heart. I will corrupt your seed and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts, and I will take you away with it. What’s he talking about here? It’s really interesting as you read through the prophets because you begin to realize after a period of time that even though God gave them the festivals, even though he gave them feasts, holy days, even though they had a total priesthood, sacrifices, rituals, and ceremonies, and a whole nine yards of all this religious observance, God repeatedly tells them in the prophets, I am sick to death of this. Why? Because you are coming in here to make your sacrifices to keep holy day with a corrupt heart. You can’t do that. You can’t come in here cherishing other idols in your heart. You can’t come in here with filthy hands and raise these hands up before me and pretend to worship me and offer sacrifices before me and keep holy days and Sabbaths and do all these wonderful works you think when there are some really serious problems that you have not laid to heart and will not have anything to do with them. You shall know, he said, that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant might be with Levi. My covenant was with him of life and peace. I gave them to him for the fear with which he feared me and was feared before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth. Iniquity was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and in equity and did turn many from iniquity. This is what Levi was for. It was to have the truth of God in his mouth, to walk with God in peace and equity, that means in justice, no iniquity to be found in their lips, and to turn lots and lots of people away from their iniquities. The word iniquity simply means lawlessness and disobedience. The priest’s lips should seek knowledge. They should seek the law at his mouth. For the priest is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. You know, people are going to come down here and listen to the priests, and they should be able to hear the law of God. They should be able to hear the man tell them the truth. He should be able to lay these things out before them. This is what the law of God says. Why weren’t they? Where had they begun to fail? Why were they not willing to preach the law in those days? Because they were breaking it. Because they were walking all over it in their own lives. You’ve got to realize this. It’s hard to stand in front of a group of people and preach a law to them that condemns you. And most preachers will avoid it. They’ll preach about something else. They’ll run down some other alley. They’ll find something else to talk about because it’s hard for them, when they’re not keeping the law, to tell the people of God that they ought to keep the law. This happened. It happened historically before the captivity. It happened again to the priesthood during the days of Malachi that the people who were supposed to be teaching the law, supposed to be turning the hearts of the people to God, were beginning to turn away from the law of God in their own conduct. And then as a result, were corrupting the teaching of the law to the people of God. It’s a history. It’s a fact of history. It happened. He says, you have departed out of the way. You have caused many to stumble at the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi. Now, I don’t know if you realize this or not, but one of the greatest failures of the Christian faith at large is the rejection of the law of God as a guide to life. You know, as I said, as a guide to life, I’m not talking about the law of shackles and chains. I’m not talking about the law as an administrative tool of a church to control people’s lives. I’m talking about the law of God as a guide to life to tell you this is right, this is wrong. This is how you worship God. This is how you do not worship God under any circumstances. This is the way. Walk in it. That’s what the law will do for people. It says this is a way. It leads to life. Health, happiness, this is the way over here. It’s going to lead to destruction, death, and nothing but a whole lot of hurt on you at every turn. And this failure is just as common today among the equivalent of the priests as it was among the real priests in the days of Malachi and the real priests in the days of Isaiah. And it is why we are as a people coming to the paths we have come to, that the preachers don’t preach morality. They do not preach the law of God. They preach morality as a choice. which it is a choice, but they do not teach morality. They teach it as one choice is as good as another, whereas the law of God does not teach that. The Bible does not teach that. The Bible tells you there is a way that leads to life, and there is a way that leads to death, and you make the wrong choice, you’re going to die. The preachers, some still tell the truth on that. An awful lot of them have long since been corrupted on it, though. and they now basically teach a pretty comfortable gospel that’s whatever works for you. Not all, and I don’t mean to paint with a wide brush, and I’m not going to have to put a stick of thumb in anybody’s eye. If the shoe fits, they can wear it. Far too many churches and preachers teach a bland ethic based loosely on the New Testament, and they forget entirely that the New Testament writers assumed the Old Testament and the law. The problem we have now today in our society is, started about 100 to 150 years ago in the theological schools and seminaries primarily in Europe and in England, but primarily in Europe. It’s made its way over the passage of time through England, into the United States, into our seminaries, into our theological schools, into those places where ministers and clerics are being trained. And for a very long time now, it has been coming out of the pulpits of the country as well. It’s only from there that it found its way to corrupt the schools. where for generations now our children have been taught that there is no creator and there are no firm standards by which life can be lived. What works, we have to judge our life and our conduct by what has worked, what society has found, what experience has shown us. I mean, you have to ask yourself the question, when schools began to teach children about sex, What can they tell them about right and wrong behavior? Because they have to teach sex because they’re not allowed to admit any religion into the classroom. They cannot teach sex with any moral content at all. You would think they could at least teach sex as something that really should be an act of love as opposed to merely an act of recreation or pleasure, but that’s not the way it’s taught. Sex is a biological function. And for the kids, it’s recreation. It’s fun. It’s pleasure. And the schools, because they have long since lost contact with the law of God. You see, we have always been a nation that believed in separation of church and state. But we have not always been a nation that banned the teaching of morals in schools. We have not always been a nation that had to deny the existence of God in our educational process. We have come to that at the end of a long period of time when the modern equivalent of the priests and the Levites of old began to corrupt the law of God and to turn away from it. And I fear, in many cases, because of their own conduct and because of their own failures. The reason I fear that is because I’ll take you back to Malachi and explain it. Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as you have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law. You’ve been partial. You decide I’ll keep this law, I won’t keep that law. I’ll teach this law, I won’t teach the other law. You have not been constant in teaching the people the truth about right and wrong behavior. So I’m going to make you contemptible and base. And so I noticed on the paper this morning that a man who had a youth ministry somewhere around here in Tyler got sentenced to 60 years in the slammer for the rape of an 8-year-old girl. He is now an object of intense contempt. And I would frankly not like to be in his shoes going into prison because they don’t treat people in prison very well like that. And he, of course, would be pretty obvious to everybody. Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother by profaning the covenant of our fathers? Judah has dealt treacherously and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. Judah has profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loves and has married the daughter of a strange God. Listen to this. The Lord will cut off the man that does this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob and him that offers an offering to the Lord of hosts. Guess where the problem started in Malachi’s day? With the masters, that’s the teachers, and the scholars. Guess where it started in our day? With the masters and the scholars. with the school of German rationalism and the other theological schools that followed on the heels of the Germans in this particular way, going back about 150 years to where this movement began to take place, and we today are seeing the fruits of it. Nothing new under the sun. It always starts here with the masters and the scholars, and it always ends in disaster and the destruction of a people. This you have done again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying out so much that God doesn’t even want to look at your offerings anymore. He can’t even receive it with goodwill at your hand. And you say, well, why? I don’t understand, Lord. Why do you say that you can’t receive our offerings anymore? Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth against whom you have dealt treacherously. Yet she is your companion and the wife of your covenant. Why? Because you’re traitors. You’re absolute traitors. You break your word, you’re truce breakers, and the one covenant above all that you had to keep, the one with the wife of your youth, you haven’t kept. Simple. Does anybody here not know what he’s talking about? He’s talking about adulterous relationships. He’s talking about people going out sleeping with somebody else’s wife. He’s talking about corrupt sexual morals, pure and simple. And did he not make, that is, man and woman, one? Yet he had a residue of the Spirit. And why one? How? Here’s our question. Why did he make two one? The answer, that he might seek a godly seed. Therefore, take heed to your spirit and let no one deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. Why? To borrow a phrase in the political world these days, it’s the children, stupid. That’s why. That’s why God came along and said, I want one man, one woman for life. I’m going to make of two one and create a family unit. Why, Lord, are you doing that? The children, stupid. Can’t you see? You have no idea at all what the effect will be on a society if we don’t have a balanced influence of man and woman in the life of a child growing up. If we don’t have a family where children can be given attention, love, care, teaching. Their feet can be put in the right way. There will be somebody who will say, don’t do that, kid. That’s going to hurt. And if events don’t hurt you, I’m going to hurt you because you do that. We’ve got to get to the place where parents can teach their children with some authority. Not abusing them. But, you know, children are not born smart. They’re born a blank page. You get to write anything in the world on that page. And most parents, I’m sorry to say, judging the fruits of it, don’t spend a lot of time writing very much there. They just let go there whatever is going to happen. In a society where parents are allowing the television to babysit their children, they are courting disaster. when they do not mitigate the teachings of television, when they do not moderate the things that are going into their child’s mind, when they don’t give meaning to the things that are happening in the world around them to their children. And how do you do that? I don’t know of any way to do this except to spend time with them. Why in the world am I, somebody who’s never had any children, telling you this? Maybe because I have the guts. I’m not compromised. You know, I haven’t made my own mistakes. I’ll tell you where I get my authority. Malachi. I get it from the Bible. I don’t get it from experience. So I will tell you, and you can take it for what it’s worth, but what I’m reading to you is here. The reason why God established the family, the reason why he made certain demands, the reason why he didn’t want people getting divorced and remarried all over the place and women hopping around from bed to bed, was for the sake of the children. God wants a godly seed. He can’t get that without a family. For the Lord, the God of Israel, says that he hates divorce. For one covers violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts. Therefore, take heed to your spirit that you deal not treacherously. You have wearied the Lord with your words. When God says, you’re making me tired with the stuff you’re talking about. You’re going to turn around and say, well, how have I wearied you? You say everyone that does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he that delights in them. Or you say, where is the God of judgment? Equivalent to saying, oh, well, there’s no God will judge. There’s no God at all. God doesn’t care. God won’t judge. How have we wearied him? Because you have said one kind of conduct is just as good as another, which is basically the mantra of our civilization. There was a country song that said it all a few generations, almost a generation back. If it feels good, do it. If it hurts, let it lie. The problem? We oftentimes don’t know what hurt there is until a long period of time has passed. Ask anyone who is dying of AIDS the truth of that. So here we are in a generation of ungodly children. And even the church has a hard time figuring out what to do about it. One of the larger churches that we know of in a conference about a year ago, I think, has one of the subjects of doctrinal question they were studying as to whether or not God is calling our children now. And when I heard that they were discussing that, I thought, what do you mean is God calling our children now? He’s certainly calling the parents to teach their children the ways of God. You know, the scriptures on what we’re supposed to do about our kids are clear as crystal. I never had no idea what they finally decided. I never heard the results of that conference, but I was really astonished that anyone would have to even ask that question, much less try to answer it. If God invented marriage in order that he might have a godly seed, then surely the church and the families of the church should be working hard toward that goal. Should we not? Shouldn’t that be a major focus of our efforts, that God created marriage, one man, one woman for life, so that he, God, might have a godly seed? Then it is a legitimate work of families and of the church where families are falling down to try to see to it that we have a godly seed. That’s what God wants us to have. This means that the church has to protect marriage and to save the children even when the parents can’t or won’t. It’s a part of our mission. It’s a part of what God expects of us. And I think that by and large we have not done as well over the years as God would have liked to have seen us do. And I think it’s time for us to begin to rethink some of these things. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians in the seventh chapter an interesting statement or two that I think we need to think about. 1 Corinthians chapter 7. Now concerning the things whereof you wrote to me, It is good for a man not to touch a woman. You’ve got to remember when you pick up one of Paul’s letters here reading someone else’s mail. This was a unique time in history. And he said concerning the things that you wrote to me about, not as a blanket statement for all time, all circumstances, and all societies. He said concerning those particular things which we don’t know what those things were. Okay? In those circumstances, it’s good for a man not to touch a woman. But he said, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to the wife, do benevolence, likewise the wife her husband. This is all very delicately worded here. But basically what he’s saying is to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, every wife her own husband. And both of you understand this. You have a sexual obligation toward one another. You have an obligation to provide the intimate relationship that a man and a woman were made to have. You are supposed to do this. You’re not supposed to hold off from one another. You’re not supposed to use sex as a club. You are supposed to have that kind of loving relationship. Paul recognizes the need for human intimacy. As God said from the start, it is not good for a man to be alone. And if it isn’t good for a man, it’s not good for a woman either. The difference between men and women is that most women know that. Some men don’t. But I speak this by permission, not of commandment. I wish, he said, that everybody was like I am. Well, frankly, I just assume not be like Paul was, but that’s what he wanted. Every man has his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that. So I say this to the unmarried and the widows, and you have to remember in this circumstance at this time, it’s good for them if they abide even as I be single. But if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn. Now, people have written volumes about what Paul meant by better to marry than to burn. I’m not going to bore you with any of that stuff. I’m just going to tell you that marriage is a better alternative. If you’re having trouble being single, get married. That’s all that is. To the married I command, not I but the Lord, let not the wife depart from her husband. If she departs, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife. Now, this is important stuff because even though they have to separate, the fact that they remain unmarried saves some part of the relationship for the sake of the children and doesn’t start bringing other parties into the relationship that are going to really screw up things where the children are concerned. But to the rest, and I think he means to the rest of your questions, not to the rest of the people, because there really isn’t any other, you know, married and unmarried is about all the categories of people that you can find. To the rest speak I, not the Lord. If any brother has a wife that believes not… And she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. Because apparently at this point in time, the biggest problem in the church was one of believers and unbelievers who were married together. And it was very common. One person would become a believer out of a family, the other person would not. And in that day and age, the person who was not a believer might very well be wandering down to the temple of Aphrodite once a week and having sex with a temple prostitute. You know, really a different world from anything you and I are familiar with. Well, maybe not that difference. The difference being the prostitute is not in a temple, but that’s another matter. He says the woman has a husband that doesn’t believe. If he is pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. And I take Paul to mean by this that the two really want to remain together as husband and wife. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife. The unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Else were your children unclean, but now they are holy. You realize what he just said? He said it is important for you to stay together because it is in the staying together that we have what Malachi called a holy seed. Holy children. that for the children to remain holy and sanctified before God, they need two parents in their lives. One is not enough. That’s why God created the family in the first place. And my heart goes out to people who are stuck in an environment where they have to make do with one person. And I think that as a church and as a people and as members of the family, we need to give those people all the support we possibly can because it’s going to be hard for them and hard for their children in the years to come, more than most of us realize. The statistical differences between children who are raised in two-parent families and children who are raised in single-parent families will make you weep. The difference in their lives, the difference in their success, the difference in their grades in school, the difference in their troubles, the difference in the number of times they get jailed for one problem or another, their involvement in drugs and so forth. Having two parents in the home makes all the difference in the world. Sometimes people are stuck with one. And that’s why the support group of the family and the church become crucial. Family is crucial. And churches should be doing whatever they can to preserve and to protect the family for the sake of the holy seed of God. If either member of the household is a believer, the children are holy. Split up the family? Paul’s implication is they’re not. It’s kind of frightening, isn’t it? And I don’t think this is necessarily because God is going to turn his back on the kids. I think it’s because of the handicap that this hands to the child. who’s got to go forward in this world the best he can under the terrible circumstances he is in. God is looking for a holy seed, and the way he designed it was by means of family. God wants a holy seed and children that are holy. To have that, he wants a nuclear two-parent family. Anything else corrupts the children. That’s what he’s telling us. Now, this is not the first society today to corrupt their children. If you’ll turn back to the first chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 1. Hear, O heavens, verse 2. Give ear, O earth, the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his owner. The ass knows his master’s crib. But Israel doesn’t know. My people do not consider. In fact, I think in many ways the United States right now today is doing better than Israel did at the time, than Jerusalem and Judah were at the time Isaiah wrote these words. But we’re headed the same direction. a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger. They have gone away backward. Now why should anyone be surprised that children, left to their own devices, would become not merely corrupt but corruptors? For children don’t know. They don’t have any background of experience. They have no guide to life to make their own decisions about what are right. How can they know right from wrong unless someone tells them? They know what feels good. They know what tastes good. But they have no wisdom, no foresight, no internal mechanism to guide them. They don’t even have the experience to tell them don’t do that because you’re going to have a hangover in the morning. And sometimes, by the time they get that experience, they’re dead because they were driving their car while they were drunk. Unless someone puts their feet in the right way with some discipline, children will become corrupt. It’s just almost like daylight following dark. It has happened. And if you really doubt it, it’s happened in our society. You really need to spend some time listening to the music your children are listening to day in, day out, and that children are producing for children to listen to. And you will learn just how bad it is getting. How has the faithful city, verse 21, become a harlot? It was full of judgment. Righteousness lodged in it. Now, murderers, killers, your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water. Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everybody loves bribes and follows rewards. They don’t judge people with equity. They don’t take care of the fatherless. They don’t cause the cause of the widow to come before them. What he’s telling us is the end of all this is going to be a terrible crisis of leadership. It’s expressed in Isaiah 3, verse 12, As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead you cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths. We can’t find these things on our own. And children sure aren’t going to find these things on their own. There’s got to be some way. We’ve got to have some way of knowing right from wrong, which way to live the life, which way to turn. Ecclesiastes 7, I won’t ask you to turn there, but verse 29, it says, I have found this one thing. God made man straight, but he has sought out many inventions. I really think that God gives every child that comes into this world a fair shot at it. The problem is that almost from the beginning, unless there is someone there as a guide to life, someone there to show them the way, someone to set an example, because this is crucial. You can’t tell them one thing and do something else. The odds are that if you’re a smoker, your children are going to smoke when they get a chance to smoke. It’s just one of those things. It’s going to happen. The odds of kids getting a divorce when they come from families that have had divorces are much higher than if they have come from a family that stayed stable throughout their life. And so on it goes. Everybody knows this. I should not even have to belabor it. The children follow examples. They have to be taught, and people have to set an example for them at the same time. If not, you’re corrupting the holy seed of God in the process. God says in Isaiah 55, verse 6, Understand this. We’re not smart enough to figure this stuff out on our own. We need to go to the word of God and do our best to live by it, to teach it to our children, to teach it to any children we can get a chance to teach it to, even if they’re not our own because somebody else is not doing the job. Because these children are a heritage of God. Human beings, we think we know better. We think we have all this experience. We think we have insight and knowledge into these things. I know one little mother, for example, who was about to seek a divorce from her husband, was warned strenuously by some experienced people not to do it. And she was told, think about your little boy. He needs a daddy in his life. Her answer? Oh, he’ll be all right. She just tossed it off. Group Magazine published a… A little exchange that took place on the Internet, a chat room with some kids. I want to read you this little exchange coming from an Internet chat room with the screen names or the IDs or the handles that the kids were using. Gypsy girl. Today my dad told me he’s moving out and is going to look for another house. He wants a divorce. I don’t know how to handle this. I’ve always known this day would come, but now that it has, I’m heartbroken. Sky blue, too. My parents got divorced about five years ago. Get ready. This is going to be hard for you. The best thing to do is never get between them when they’re arguing. Don’t give up on life. There is something out there that you’ve got to love. I found music after my parents split, and it saved me from suicide. Do what makes you smile, and it doesn’t hurt to have faith in God. Olivia. When this happened, I cried. You should never hold your tears in. It only makes you feel worse. It helps you sometimes to talk about how you feel. Dreamchild. Whatever you do, you must be strong. If you get the chance to see your dad and your mom both, that’s great. But if they want to start telling you each other’s stuff about it, which is how parents do, they start telling the kid about dad. If they start telling you that kind of stuff, stay out of it. I can’t make this one out, Something Other Rocks. Look, you guys, I know it hurts a lot. I’ve been through the whole thing, divorce, two custody battles, and right now we’re in our third custody battle. All I’m saying is crying won’t help anyone. You can’t just close your life and not move forward. You can’t throw your life away just because your dad and mom got divorced. No, you’ve got to move on. So stop crying. It won’t help. It’ll just bring more pain. Olivia, again. I cry about it because it helps me. It makes me feel better. I can’t stand to just hold my tears. I shut myself up in my room for a long time every day after school to let out my anger in a way that isn’t yelling at my family like my dad used to do. Neon eyes. I’ve been going through it for the past two years. It’s definitely not fun. You have each of your parents trying to get you on their side. It does a lot of wear and tear on your emotions. J.D. Fox, all of you think you have it bad. Well, it is, but get over it and move on. Baby girl, that’s not right. Some people are different than you. Some people love both their parents equally and were put together and made you, and when they tear apart, they’re tearing you apart. It’s not easy to get over something like that. You know, these two people were put together and they made you. Now they’re being torn apart and tearing you apart. That’s not so easy. Slow dancer. I feel exactly the same way. It’s strange because my folks split almost five years ago, too. Sometimes I feel like screaming because I feel like I’m being pulled in two different ways. Diva. It’s rough, but I look on the bright side. A few nights a week, I cry myself to sleep, but I have to be strong for my mom. Kids got to be strong. For us, one of these days, we’re going to have to learn that God is right. We’re going to have to learn that he knows and we don’t. We can learn things by experimentation, but we’re going to have to learn that the cost of that is way too high. The bad news is our children are paying the price. One of the commandments, the very first one, says this. You shall have no other gods before me. Then he goes on with this. You shall not make any graven image or any likeness of anything that’s in heaven above or on earth beneath or that’s in the water under the earth. You shall not bow yourself down to them nor serve them, for I am the Lord your God. I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. You know, Dr. Laura said something interesting in her book on the Ten Commandments. She said that the very first commandment reveals to us that the relationship with God is not casual. It’s covenantal. And there are too many of us who pursue a casual relationship with God instead of a covenant relationship. And in family after family, the relationship between a man and a woman is casual and sexual and not covenantal. And they have forgotten the reason why God made them male and female and said they would cleave together and become one flesh. It was so that he might have a godly seed. Why defend the family? It’s the children, stupid.