Billy Graham Birmingham AL 1972 #2

now tonight I want to talk on the home the problems of the American home and the statistics I've been reading and the stories I've been hearing and the people that I've been talking to psychologist psychiatrist and people who write columns in the newspapers the American home is in trouble I get several thousand letters a day I write a little newspaper column that has about 25 million circulation every day throughout the United States it's called my answer and I get hundreds and thousands of letters and most of them have to do with domestic problems problems in the home and I want to talk about that tonight I heard about one young fella that was getting married and he didn't have any money and he went to the preacher and he said will you marry us he said yes if you've got the bride and if you've got your license and he said I've got a booth and he came in and the bride had on a heavy veil but the minister got a couple people out from the neighborhood they came into his home to be witnesses and he married them and a man said well how much do you and the preacher said well you just pay me whatever you think the bride's worth so the fellow reached in his pocket and got out a quarter and flipped it over to the to the preacher and the preacher reached over and he lifted the veil of the bride and took a look reached in his pocket got 15 cents changed and handed it back there are many stories about homes that you could tell I heard one the other day about our yeah there are all kinds of mother-in-law jokes I think one of the reasons there's so much about mother-in-law's is because there's such marvelous people I don't think anybody in the world has had a finer mother-in-law than I've had out a father-in-law but this fella had a Moo and the mule kicked his mother and a lot of death and his neighbor came over to attend the funeral and he said Jim he said I didn't know that you thought that much of my mother-in-law to come over and attend the funeral I'm very honored oh he said I didn't come to attend the funeral he said I came to buy them you but tonight I want you to turn with me to second Kings second Kings the fourth chapter and the 26th verse second Kings the fourth chapter in the 26th verse these are the words of Elisha the prophet run now I pray thee to me burn say unto her is it well with thee is it well with thy husband is it well with the child is it well this is the story of Elijah and the Shunammite woman every day he and dehaze I his servant would pass by and one day the father and the mother in this home the husband and the wife decided that they would build a guest cottage an annex to their home and they put a lamp in it and they put a stand in it and they put a chair and a bed in it very much like a modern hotel room on motel room and I lost you the Prophet and gaze I the servant stayed there for a long time they would go out on their preaching missions and they would come back and they would stay there and one day the son in the home had a sudden stroke out working in the fields and he died and so the shunammite woman saddled up her donkey and went to find Alijah he was up on Mount Carmel preaching and the first question he asked when he saw the woman he saw something was wrong he said is it well with thy husband is it well with the child is it well with thee and the question that I would like to ask every person here tonight that has a home to the husband to the wife to the child is it well with thee is it well with your home is it well with the husband is it well with the father is it well with the wife is it well with the mother is it well with thee what would be your answer if Elijah the Prophet should ask you that question now I want to ask this question is it well with you as a husband is it well with you as a father what about your relationship in the home god said to the man be fruitful and multiply replenish the earth subdue it and have dominion and the scripture says that God saw everything and it was good in all of creation in the beginning before man had sinned but there was one thing that God said is not good it's not good that man should live alone so he created a helpmate for him I'll talk about that in a moment but I want to talk about Adam for a moment I want to talk about the man you see Adam lived in a perfect environment there was no smog no ecological problem no taxes no Wars no hate no prisons no armies no police forces no establishment everything was perfect and he was the greatest biologist that ever lived because God said name all the animals and all the creeping things and that was Adams job and then later Adam became a husband and all of us are the sons of Adam Adam rebuild against God he sinned sex which was supposed to be beautiful and wonderful became perverted and ugly and destroying God meant that sex was to be used within marriage and the Bible says that our job husbands is to love our wives and then is it well with the wife what about Hugh Ives is it well with you when God created woman he said I will make him a help meet now what does that mean it means a helper fit not to give fits but a helper that's fit and complements him perfectly and answers back to his need and fills the empty places of his life God said it's not good that man should live alone so he caused a deep sleep to come over Adam and he took a rib out of Adam's side and made a woman you say Billa that you actually literally believe that that's what happened I certainly do this is just as easy for me to believe that as it is to believe some scientific explanation that we don't have I believe it because the Bible said it you see God took her out of his side not out of his head so he could dominate her intellectually not out of her not out of his feet so he could trample on her but out of his side so she could be a companion and Adam said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh and I heard dr. Hendrix some time ago down in Dallas he's a scholar and he was explaining what the Hebrew really means you know what Adam really said when he's so woman for the first time he said will be that's exactly what that means it literally means now at last you see he wasn't complete he hadn't found his fulfillment now he finds completeness and fulfillment in the white in ease what about you wise the Bible says you to love your husband you're to help your husband are you fulfilling your function as a wife you can't do it even without Christ let Christ come into your home let Christ come into your life let him help you to be the kind of wife and the mother that you ought to be and then I want to ask this question of everybody here the husband the wife the children all that make up the family is it well with your total marriage relationship is your home a Christian home therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife that word cleave means to hold on to to hold with an iron grip it means to abandon and forsake your other home and cleave deal wife your wife is now first the husband is first not the in-laws but the husband the wife her needs her wants her desires her demands must take precedent over those who follow their mother from that moment on when you go to the marriage altar you owe her an allegiance you owe him an allegiance that is now primary and first now when you add a marriage and you go to get married don't start looking for the fire escape don't go at it with the attitude well if it doesn't work out we'll separate and get a divorce and it'll all be over if you're a Christian that won't be your you're gonna have problems every couple that I have ever counseled and every couple I ever heard about have problems after they get married adjusting but the adjustment period is far easier if Christ is there if you can go to the Bible and read the Bible together if you've kneel in prayer together it's a much easier time but even the most devout Christians will have their moments of disagreement and their moments of difficulty and problems but if you can come to marriage with Christ and say to yourself there's no way out no fire escape this is for life this is for eternity this is for better this is for worse God will bless you and honor you some people have been helped by the little slogan I read some time ago united we stand divided we pay alimony and one divorced man said alimony is like making the payment on your car after it's already been raped now if there's no way out for the Christian then work your way through your problems with Christ I've seen some of the most amazing miracles take place in the lives of two people that seemed there was no way to make it and there wasn't I've talked to people that have spent a fortune going to psychologist and psychiatrist but it found the answer in Jesus Christ and we hardly ever hold a crusade but what a man and a woman who have been divorced or separated come to the front and receive Christ sometimes not knowing the other when it's there and following each others arms and receive Christ take Christ into your marriage and it'll be a different home and a different marriage now when it comes to sex sex is important in marriage and it's important that you come to it with the right attitude the Bible says the marriage bed is undefiled and the Bible says that it's for the propagation of the race but it's also for enjoyment for the culmination of marriage but sex is to be used only in marriage otherwise you're in trouble in trouble with yourself in trouble with God and in trouble with others as well now there's a difference between love and lust and Sebastien temple the great African folk singer has written these words listen love is silenced lust as a rule love as a sacrifice lust always once more love is giving lust on the Tate's love is a mending of hearts lust only breaks thus marriage and sex are of divine origin God thought it he planned it he performed the first marriage he gave us our sexuality accept it from God and use it for the glory of God marriage takes three people God the husband and the wife and then when children come there others now of course the devil came along in the Garden of Eden and started the perversion of marriage and the perversion of sex and he's been working at it ever since trying to destroy homes trying to break up marriages trying to get children rebellious against parents and tear the home up because if he tears the homer he can tear the nation down and tear up the world and that's his object the devil would like to wreck your home and some of you just about to let him do it I beg of you to stop turn around repent of your sins receive Christ and let him be the lord of your home but before he can be the lord of your home he has to be the Lord and Savior of your own soul and of your own life you know Christ was the product of a godly home he spent 30 of his 33 years in the home wouldn't it have been interesting to gone into the home of Jesus he used the words mother and father and our Father and brethren with such tenderness and even while he was dying on the cross he was thinking about his mother the Bible has a great deal to say about marriage and I can only touch the high spots tonight I want to ask you do you have a happy home what makes a happy home first parents should not be miss mated throughout the Bible and warns against marrying the wrong person now that may be why some of you just don't get marry you're afraid you might marry the wrong person but it's a wonderful thing to know Christ and to let Christ guide you in marrying the right person because you see there's a girl somewhere God's picked out for you and there's a man somewhere that God's picked out for you if you're willing to wait I heard about a fortune-teller who was talking to a lady that seemed to gone over 30 without getting married and the fortune-teller said you're going to be proposed to three times during the next six months she said no I won't I'm going to accept the first and some of you a little bit like that the important thing is to seek God's will and get the right one and if you get the right one then it can be a happy marriage and then secondly to have a happy home there must be love in the home love never fails the Bible says one of the greatest reasons for so-called teenage rebellion and delinquency today and trouble is lack of love lack of love in the home loving your children through the teenage period now that's difficult but do it they're going to have their moments of rebellion they're finding themselves they're growing from teenagers to adults and they have a real tough time I think the teenage period later adolescence is the most difficult period of all our lives and some of our adolescence doesn't end till we're about 27 or 28 years of age because you see in that period of time you're - you're going to choose a wife for our husband you're going to decide on your vocation you're gonna finish your education it's a difficult period of time and you're changing psychologically and physiologically the whole world is changing for you you're changing from a boy to a man from a girl to a woman it's a hard period of time and during that period of time parents should love and advise and counsel but most of all love and understand is there love in your home I talked to a teenager the other day and he said you know my parents don't love me and I've never heard my father say son I love you I thought what a tragedy you know when I was a boy growing up in North Carolina I had to work real hard on the farm and I had a lot of discipline and my dad didn't mind taking off his belt and giving it to me time after time but there's one thing I knew about my parents they loved me and their love held me more than anything else and then the third thing I've already mentioned this family devotions do you have family devote I'll tell you how to do it make it breathe make it interesting make it sincere we've had family devotions at my home ever since we had a home I've never had one of my five children say dad let's don't have devotions today now I've had one boy that has mentioned a couple times that they got a little long and I remember I had a guest / German in a very famous clergyman in and he I asked him to pray and he prayed quite a long prayer and when he got through my little boy who was only three or four then said daddy that was far too long right out loud there's to be discipline in the home what does discipline mean it means the pole must be under control it doesn't mean that you go around with a big stick but it means this to be order in the home and the parents are to be in charge I want to ask you said well with your home I have two friends that talked to me the other day and they told me about their son they had been living abroad their son had come back here to school and he'd gotten on hard drugs and he had won that way away from the teachings of his parents and the church and God and they said when they got back home and found this condition he came to visit them and he came full of hostility and rebellion and they never mentioned anything they didn't preach to him they didn't talk they just loved him and they said after three weeks one day he came in and he said you know why haven't you all preached at me I expected to be lectured all you've done is love me and I've seen something in your lives that I need and I want and I want your Jesus that boy is now studying to be a preacher of the gospel by love is there love in your home Zacchaeus was up a tree when Jesus came through the town of Jordan Jesus looked up and said Zacchaeus I'm coming to your house today what a joy they must have been when Jesus came to the house of Zacchaeus it changed his life changed this family would you let Christ come to your house today would you let him come to your heart you teenagers you young people will you let Christ come in and be your Lord and your master and the husband or the wife that you're to have you see Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins we've all sinned every one of us I've sinned you've sinned we're all in the same boat we're all sinners and the boat is sinking the wages of sin is death but he came and took the death and the judgment in the hell that we deserve on the cross and he says I love you I want to forgive you I want to come into your life I want to come into your heart I want to come into your home I'm asking you to let him tonight I'm going to ask hundreds of you right now to get up out of your seat and come and stand in front of the platform and say tonight I need Jesus I need him as my lord in my master you may be a member of the church you may be a deacon you might be an elder you might even be a pastor you may be a choir member but you need Christ you want him to forgive you a sin and change your life and make you a new person and you're gonna say Lord come into my home and into my heart I want to receive you as my Lord and my must and my Savior you may not have any religion you may be Protestant Catholic Jewish or no religion but you want Jesus Christ to be your Lord and your master you get up and come why do I ask you to come because every person Jesus called in the New Testament he called publicly he said if you're not willing to acknowledge me publicly I'll not acknowledge you before my father which is in heaven and after you've all come I'm going to say a word to you and have a prayer with you and you can go back and join your friends give you some literature but you come and make that commitment in that decision right now hundreds of you from up in the top stands if you're with friends or relatives or you've come in a bus they'll wait it'll only take a moment until you get up and come right now quickly hundreds of you as you that are watching by television can see there are hundreds of people coming here in Birmingham Alabama this famous football stadium to make their commitment to Jesus Christ you can make that same commitment right where you are now in your home in a hotel lobby in your hotel room in a bar room wherever you are you can say yes to Christ he'll come in and forgive the past and give you a new power and a new dimension in your life to live for him or maybe you're sitting there with your family and your whole family can rededicate their lives to Christ tonight and have a Christian hope determine you're going to have devotions and go to church god help you to make that commitment tonight if you would like to commit your life to Jesus Christ you can contact us on the web 24/7 and peace with God TV or you can write to us at Billy Graham 1 Billy Graham Parkway Department C Charlotte North Carolina - 8 to 0 1 or if you're in Canada right - Billy Graham xx Hopewell way northeast Calgary Alberta will get the same helps to you that we give to everyone who responds at the invitation on behalf of Franklin Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association thank you for watching and thank you for your prayers

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Length: 26min 57sec (1617 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 20 2016