Marriage, Family and Parenting - Paul Washer

several years ago i was doing a marriage conference in in russia and um some i had to preach i think i forget what it was but it was somewhere around 18 or 21 sermons that week on marriage and um i had gotten into i don't know how many sermons but we were way over halfway and one of the leaders came up to me and goes brother paul you have not yet preached on marriage and i said i know what have i preached on he said the fruit of the spirit so if i had a man who knew all the principles of marriage but he's not filled with the spirit and bearing the fruit of the spirit all those principles really aren't going to matter if i have a man who is filled with the holy spirit bearing the fruit of the spirit love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control he's going to do all right in marriage now you need both but nothing takes the place of transformation as a man you see when you talk about authority you have to be very careful you don't put authority as a man in the context of caesar this is in the context of christ how do i have authority i have authority to serve i have authority to make every decision i make for the glory of god for the benefit of my wife for the benefit of my children and what about me i'm not in the formula authority with regard to an elder he has authority to serve to the glory of god for the benefit of god's people and he doesn't fit in the equation as the head of my home i have the right to serve everyone in my home and to go to bed more tired than everyone else in my home i have authority to work very hard at the mission come home and know that my day has just begun i have a wife i have now three children at home i had four children at home one of them just turned five and she is my shadow you see men you don't really want authority authority will send you to an early grave or at least make you look like you're already ready for an early grave authority will make you tired authority makes you a servant that every decision i make i'm not in the equation that's true authority what does god command what will bring him glory what is the best thing for my wife what can i do that she will prosper that she will grow that she will become everything she ought to become in christ not molded in my image but molded in the image of god according to the way god made her do you see so authority is not a gorilla-like beating of the chest it's not a caesar-like everybody serves me and we have that tendency we come home where the say you're the bread winner you've worked very hard you come home everyone ought to serve you no they they don't you just keep going you just keep going but if you keep going they will want to serve you at times dad rest i got this honey go out take your gun kill something enjoy yourself do you see what does my wife need she needs a better husband now not that i want her to replace me anytime soon she needs a better husband what's the biggest problem in our marriage my wife needs a better husband what's the biggest problem in my family my wife and children need a better husband and father you see when you're supposedly if something bad happens at heart cry who do they come to whose fault is it who's responsible me something goes bad in the church who's responsible always the one who assumes some position of authority and so men this is very very important especially for men in the ministry i have heard men say that they rightfully have neglected their family in some degree because of ministry do you know what those men are doing they're accusing god they're accusing god you know what they're saying they're violating romans 12 1-2 that says the will of god is what perfect so if you tell me because of the ministry i don't have time for my family look what you're saying you're saying that the will of god is imperfect because in order to obey the will of god in the ministry i have to violate the will of god with regard to my wife and my family that's blaming god that's nothing heroic or sacrificial that's blaming god and that's demonstrating that your real intention is not to be obedient your real intention is to create some sort of name for yourself some sort of kingdom or maybe god just needs your help you see we're only required to be obedient okay now some of you wives right now you just want to put a proverbial elbow right into the ribs of your husband and say something like this why can't you be like that man here's the answer i'm going to give you look at her and say that man's not even like that man but i do see this as a reality and i do repent when anything starts becoming like me and oh it does whenever there are unmet expectations that cause me to be sad but but men authority is authority to serve you have been entrusted with god's daughter you have been entrusted with children do you see now men if you worked let's say i owned a big company and 75 of the sales or let's say that i owned a big company and you were kind of a new guy in there and you were just useless do you know what i would probably say look to my upper management i'd say yeah he's useless but he's young let's invest in him let's have some mercy let's keep him on now let's change the scenario 75 percent of all the sales in my company come from you you're a hot shot you're amazing but you also happen to be married to my daughter you're neglecting her and mistreating you i'm going to shoot you hang you in a tree and let the news spread that no one does something like that to my daughter well you're going to lose all the sales i don't care it's my daughter your wife if she is a believing wife is far more important to god he doesn't need you to manage his company he doesn't need your sales he doesn't need whatever you think that you're giving god is calling us to a life of obedience a life of obedience and that is a fearful thing when you've been as married as long as i have and you say you're saying the things i'm saying and you look back and you see so many times when that was not lived out in your life but i find out that it's helpful at least to know this is true to strive towards it and repent when you see yourself outside of it than like many men who've never even thought about the things i'm saying right now all we are required to be is obedient now some of you are maybe pastors and you remember when i said yesterday have you ever gone through the old and new testament and wrote out every text that has to do with pastoring so you actually know what your responsibilities are according to god most people haven't books say the same thing have you ever gone through the old and new testament and picked out all the texts that talk about what a husband is what god will judge you for on the day of judgment with regard to your office as husband most people never done that the bible says where there is no vision the people perish and usually guys with really big churches the vision is a building program and they say where we don't have a vision to go forward we're going to just perish that's not what that text means at all it's actually talking about a revelation of god's law where there is no revelation or knowledge of what god's will is the people run wild husbands it's really easy to run wild doing that which is right in our own eyes when we've never sat down and said lord according to you what is a husband what is he supposed to do and how will he be judged have you ever done that don't you think you ought to i mean that's pretty big because you will be judged regarding that matter okay and so it's it's you can say all day long you're in a biblical church you can say all day long that you believe in inerrancy and infallibility and inspiration but do you believe in the sufficiency of scripture one of the most important tasks that's been given to you is to care for your bride how's that supposed to be defined only by scripture remember one time when i was in seminary the professor walked in he said okay students i want you just give me a bunch it was still when you used blackboards and he said just give me lists of attributes and so it's just there's probably 25 i don't know how many just a multitude of attributes that were written on the board after about 10 minutes i'm kind of sitting there just looking and the professor looked at me and goes okay washer what are you looking so funny for and i said well i was just thinking about something we've said nothing and he said what do you mean we've said nothing we've written all these attributes on the board but he knew where i was going i said well but we've said nothing as a matter of fact maybe we've said heresy and he said but every one of these are in the scriptures i said yeah they are still could be heretical and he said why i said because there's about 30 students here it's really possible that 30 students have 30 different definitions on what holy is 30 definitions of what love is 30 definitions of what just is so by putting those names up there we've done nothing unless we define those terms biblically and that's the same way you can look at your wife and say i love you that's what you can say i love you so what you're saying is this i am patient with you i am kind to you i'm not jealous about your happiness your promotion i don't brag about myself around you i'm never arrogant with you i do not act in an unbecoming or unattractive way around you i never seek my own i only seek your good i'm never provoked i never take an account wife any wrong that you've done to me i never bring it up the moment you do it i forgive it and i remember it no more i never rejoice in unrighteousness but only with the truth and with you my dear wife i bear all things all your shortcomings all your failures i bear with them i believe all things when you say you're going to start anew i believe you when you say you're sorry i believe you when you say that you're going to try to never do that again i'm never going to say to you yeah you've said that a hundred times i endure all things whatever you throw at me i endure it because my love never fails do you see when you say i love you i know guys who love pickles is that the same thing so you see you see how powerful the word is just with what i just did shocked you didn't it it shocked you why because now you can't use the word love or the phrase i love you because without thinking about it biblically when i say i love you i'm making a commitment to you to be this way just this little thing i just said it can change everything hasn't it can't do you see oh i'm a pastor who who defines that god he is a definition of a pastor he has the qualifications of a pastor non-negotiable he has the duties of a pastor laid out throughout the old and new testament and if you're not doing those things or qualifying those things you're not a pastor i can i can say that i'm a chimpanzee but that doesn't make me one do i have the characteristics of a chimpanzee do you see and that's what i want you to see i'm so tired of myself and of you constantly talking of how biblical we are and then you're all of a sudden introduced to a passage in first corinthians 13 that you would have memorized when you were a little child and now it's been brought into your life here after you're 40 or 50 years old and you're going my gosh that's astounding to look at it that way you mean that's astounding and life-changing to look at love biblically do you see and the reason why i'm giving this point is because we need to go through all the bible that way how should i act as a dad how should a wife act how should a mother act how should children act mom why do we do this because i say so no we do this because this is what god in his wisdom has ordained do you see we're really not i'm not let's just leave you out of the equation many times i awake to find out i'm really not quite as biblical as i thought i was do you see and and so those are some things that i wanted to bring out now just briefly in verse 21 of ephesians 5 and be subject to one another in the fear of christ believers are to be subject to one another in the fear of christ now that doesn't mean whatever you tell me i'm going to believe accept and submit my life to because another believer can be wrong but the idea that i want you to see is first of all not my wife and i as husband and wife but i want you to see two believers because that's what we are i firmly believe that a man is to lead his home so believe that when i say that i do but i'm also subject to my wife as a fellow believer she can speak into my life she can talk to me she can tell me when she disagrees with me i can sit down and ask for her counsel and have one opinion she has another and i sit there and go my wife has made the wiser decision i think we need to follow her counsel she's a fellow believer and for me to listen to her draw counsel from her and sometimes go the way she suggested because i see there's a lot more wisdom in it that doesn't make me less of a leader at all and the first person i'm going to run to is not going to even be my elder necessarily except in some stream extreme situation but with regard to me and my family i'm going to run to my wife and we're going to talk i'm going to listen i'm going to listen and when i don't i recognize i'm in sin sometimes it takes a few days sometimes it takes la chancla you uh gringos wouldn't understand that that's a latin thing where if you see a woman coming at you and you happen to be married to her and she's got flip-flops on do not insult her because in a millisecond she will jump up in the air and do some bruce really move grab her flip-flop off her foot and throw it it'll bounce off the wall seven eight times take out all the children and you and then go back in their hands like that okay but she's a fellow believer i don't complete her i know that shocks you i hear these preachers your husband completes you ma'am if your husband can complete you you're lost you're not a christian only christ can complete you don't put your husband there he's he's gonna fail every time on that job your heart has been expanded too far as a believer for some silly man to be able to complete you and fill you he's not my wife doesn't complete me and i don't complete her christ completes us i'm not going to put the pressure on her you've got to complete me all right we're both believers another thing i am not my wife's mediator she doesn't need a mediator between christ and herself she is a person in her own right and one day she'll receive a white stone with a name on it and i won't know anything about that name it's between her and the lord so she's a believer my wife also doesn't need to go to one of those silly women's conferences that's entitled if the world gives you lemons learn how to make lemonade my wife needs theology because she's a believer and women grow in grace the same way men do through the study of scripture scripture my wife needs scripture and my wife can talk to me about scripture and my wife can actually instruct me in scripture doesn't mean she's taking authority over me or being my head or anything but if it wasn't for her i'd never understood proverbs 31. i was talking about it one day and she goes well sit down for a second here's your problem you're seeing this as a day in the life of this woman when actually these are stages in her life she wasn't trading with merchants when she was raising children there's stages in her life and there's going to be stages in mind anything you say dear just tell me when those stages are so i can have a heads up on it and and so first of all i want you to see that you're walking with a believer you see how important that is it's so important she doesn't walk behind me she don't walk in front of me she walks beside me she's not lesser she's different she's a helper but obviously there's something she's got i really need because god said i'm not going to make it without her. it's like again you marry a latin woman you need me yes i do you see and i want you to see that because whenever we talk people talk about headship i see them automatically going a lot of times going down a road where either they deny headship in the end or they turn it into some sort of i don't know grotesque monster where the woman is something less and she's not she's different i never thought that would get me in trouble for saying it but women are different than men all right but then it comes to 22 and it says wives be subject to your own husbands as to the lord this won't work if you don't understand the lord's headship and you don't understand some of the differences here first of all we're talking about the headship of jesus christ who knowing where he came from where he was going who he was and everything he took a towel and he served it's service it is service this is not caesar's throne this is christ's basin in christ's towel how do i primarily then lead as the head of my home paul said you know imitate me as i imitate christ i believe that primarily my role is that of teaching teaching teaching you know it's amazing that the elders who truly expose it to the scriptures and are constantly teaching the scriptures to their people they have less need of making these radical independent decisions and strong arming a congregation why because they all have the same mind because of teaching because of example you see so when their decision has to be made in my home i don't just make the decision i don't why would i why wouldn't i draw upon the council of the woman that i love and i need her counsel now in the end if a push comes to shove and a decision has to be made and there's still not the unity we need but it has to be made and she recognized it yeah there we go i gotta make it and i gotta stand or fall on that decision but that's hardly ever happened i really don't know if it is has ever happened because here's the thing you probably heard this illustration but it's always been helpful for me you got a bicycle wheel and you got the axis in the middle and you got spokes spokes start out wide and they start getting narrower and narrower as they touch the axis you know what's amazing the spokes never touch each other but the closer they get to the center of the wheel the closer the spokes come together i don't need to conform my wife to my image nor does she need to conform me to hers we both need to be conformed to the image of christ and as both of us get closer to christ and the mind of christ the more we are going to think alike and that's teaching that's scripture and you say well you know you're a preacher and i say and sir you're a believer and the bible says clearly in the new covenant that they will all be taught of god and here's something where i will tell you that i have failed is that i am married to an extremely strong woman and i am glad about that but because she's so strong i've spent most of our marriage investing my life in our children because they were unconverted investing in them investing in them investing in them and this is one area in which i'm changing but i failed the person i should have been most concerned about growing spiritually was my wife now she has grown spiritually but she did it on her own and that's good but your priority is not your children it should never be your children the priority is your wife growing together studying the scriptures together and praying together and because my wife is so strong all i was ever thinking about was devotional times with the children discipling the children doing this doing that and that's not right because according to ephesians 5 as we go down here we see the idea of gospelizing your wife and i'm going to talk about that for a moment but i want to say this right now ladies and and again i'm talking about in the context of a normal marriage not an abusive relationship or anything like that that's a completely different thing but i'm just talking about a normal marriage where sometimes yeah you really want to kill him but it's a normal marriage okay um i need my wife's respect i i don't need her there's a difference between her counseling even questioning but i don't need every move to be questioned i don't need every move to be doubted i don't need to be told well the last time you made a decision like this you can kill your husband ladies and some of you probably are just like your husband can just be totally blind the needs you have and your desire for love and everything else he can be totally blind and he can kill you by wilting you down to nothing just by neglect because he's so thinking about himself but in the same way you can just demoralize that man and turn him into nothing he he needs your respect now here goes a really important thing well if he wants my respect he needs to earn it and you want and if you want his love you need to meet all the conditions and that's be six feet tall weigh four pounds and uh have the spirituality of the apostle paul we're not going to get anywhere with that kind of attitude are we you see let me share with you something you see these dating services where it's like you know you meet the person that's like you you know i want i want us to be compatible right you know what that is it's self-love it's exactly what it is i love me and i want to love somebody just like me they're not just like me i don't love them here's what god's going to do he's going to throw a wrench into all of that god is going to give you a wife now i could say the same thing god is going to give you a husband but i can't just keep going backwards and forwards god is going to give you a wife that meets all the conditions that must be met so that you're not tempted beyond what you can bear but god is also going to give you a wife that he has purposely orchestrated to not meet some of the most important conditions for you she may by god's purpose literally not be what you want in the areas where she you most wanted her to be that why well let's just ask a question how can you learn unconditional love if you're married to someone who meets all the conditions and we can turn that around same way with your husband you know you may have wanted certain things and then you're sad the rest of your life because of unmet expectations he never turned out to be what i wanted him to be you see what what this is really all about it's marriage is about reflecting the love of christ and the responsiveness of the church so man is to love his wife but the wife is to respond to that but if we get into the thing of i'll respond when he loves or i'll love when he responds well that's like eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth and pretty much everybody's walking around blind with no teeth you see the whole idea is this whole thing is and men the primary responsible the primary responsibility is on us you say well i will love my wife this way when she respects me yeah but there's a real problematic text in first john why do we love him because he loved us first you see that this whole thing about unconditional love it's just that's the thing you pray all your life i want to be like christ i want to be like christ i want to be like christ well i'm what is christ most what are the things we think we sing about do we sing about his wrath not much do we sing about his judgment not much what do we sing about his love his unconditional love his mercy his grace you know god told me one time and this is so true if you're a preacher it is so true so you've been out preaching for two weeks you've been going through jungles you've been getting shot at i mean eating monkey i mean everything you you're god's champion and you've been out there fighting dragons and you come home and you think that when you approach the house your wife should come out just throwing her arms open to take in her champion and your children coming out and throwing flowers our father not our dad our father has come home and that's not what happens here's what happens you get to the door you've been through this you're almost afraid to touch that doorbell and even before you touch it the door flies open and there's a woman standing there going i hope you're finished with your vacation because your children not mine two weeks and you get mad you know what a friend of mine told me he said here's what's going on he said i've seen this happen with my wife who is godly i've seen this happen with other ministers because you know what's going on he says i'm an old man now this is what's going on i'm going to tell you god could give your wife grace to answer that door in a completely different way but he's giving you the opportunity to show your wife what christ is like even in the face of her sin and every time you get angry you failed you just failed to show her the unconditional love of christ and you put yourself right in the center of everything wow wow so i've been nailing the guys pretty hard we're gonna do a question and answer for a moment but i i just want to get over here and i want to talk to the women for a minute so buckle up okay let's go to romans chapter 12. this is just a brief excerpt from my sermon to women on how to live in such a ways so that god will kill your husband now again i'm just saying it that way so you kind of get an idea here okay look what it says in verse 17 chapter 12 never pay back evil for evil to anyone respect what is right in the sight of all men if possible so far as it depends on you be at peace with all men never take your own vengeance beloved but leave room for the wrath of god for it is written vengeance is mine i will repay says the lord but if your enemy is hungry feed him and if he is thirsty give him a drink for in doing so you will keep burning coals on his head do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good one time i had to go take my car to inspection as far as i know it's an old it was an old jeep but all the lights were working everything was fine i turn it into the you know mechanic come to find out there were lights that weren't working there were different things and they had to fix it it cost me i don't know somewhere under 100 it wasn't that bad i drive home and i pull in my driveway get out i'm looking at none of the lights don't work the lights they supposedly the new ones they put in i didn't have any light problems so i drive back when i drove back and i pulled in there they knew they had been caught they knew it i could see it on their faces and man there were three of them standing in the door and you could just see them getting ready they were getting ready because they knew i was going to bust out of there and i walked up and i said i prayed about it i walked up and i said men i so appreciate everything you've done you found those lights those different things but it seems like there's some problem that just happened if you could look at it again and just fix those lights they must have come loose or something and you could just see them looking at me like you know we're caught why are you treating us this way man i felt so spiritual i witnessed to him i fixed the car i got in and no i did not hear a voice the lord didn't speak to me but all of a sudden there was such conviction of sin i felt like the biggest hypocrite in the world and all i could think about was those wicked men who purposely sought to take your money and everything else you treated them with such kindness and patience and everything and yet i go home and then impatient with my wife are angry because of this or that isn't it amazing how we can treat other people in the church we can treat unbelieving people so beautifully then we come home the person that's supposed to be most special to us we treat them as a commoner do you see that now that just popped into my head so let's go back to this so look at verse 19. never take your own vengeance beloved but leave room for the wrath of god now if your husband is a believer we're not talking about the wrath of god here but i want you to look at something when when you go to europe in a lot of the castles they're just beautiful and you'll see this like front door i'm not talking about the main gate but the front door the castle will be huge ten guys could go in that castle walking shoulder to shoulder enter in that front door but in some of the castles the stairwell going up to the second floor is about this narrow and then there's just a door at the top that's also quite small and i asked somebody about it one time why have i seen this as a common trait and he says oh it's brilliant he says let's say you're in the castle in the castle's surrounded by enemies and the enemies far outnumber you far outnumber you well those enemies bust in the front door 10 men walking shoulder to shoulder just busting that front door but everybody in the castle what do they do they don't they run up to the second floor he said think about this you see the way that those stairs are only one man at a time can come up those stairs and so one man with a pike it's like a long spear can stand there and defend that entire castle because only one man at a time can come up those stairs ladies you're disappointed with your husband you're angry with your husband your husband isn't the husband you want him to be or your husband failed in this that that and you're going to change him you're the one who writes my wife and says teach me how to lead my husband to lead here's what i would tell you you're praying god why don't you change my husband it's been years why don't you change him why don't you change my husband why don't you change my husband and the lord says get out of the way why don't you change my so you you're attacking the castle your husband's run up to the second floor he's there with the pike and you're coming running at him up those narrow stairs and the whole time you're tr you're fighting your husband with your sword which happens to be your tongue the whole time you're fighting your husband you're looking back and say god why don't you help me get out of the way god why don't you help me get out of the way why don't you do anything with my husband get out of the way now again i'm talking about a normal marriage not an abusive marriage or things like that i'm just talking about the normal marriages where we have normal problems where the wife sometimes does want to kill the husband have you ever won a battle with your husband yes did it ever change him no you're doing exactly what you're not supposed to be doing you see your sin against me does not give me an excuse to sin against you your sin against me does not give me an excuse to violate the commands of god do you see that you see let's look at it this way i have given my wife reasons for being angry with me but the lord has never given my wife reasons for disobeying him you see you see what it is we justify ourselves well you know he he just he never thinks about me never doesn't lead our home and he doesn't do that so you're going to sin now and that's going to make it better is that what you're saying or the husband says you know she's always she always questions me she says she wants a leader if i lead she comes against me she does okay so that gives you a reason not to love her but you see you both failed each other so i guess you could say each of you have given a reason to the other but christ never gave you a reason to disobey him do you see the problem this is not treat her in a certain way because she deserves it or treat him in a certain way because he deserves it it's treat each other a certain way because the one who never failed you commanded it commanded it and a lot of times especially with your husband just write out a list go home think about it for a week write out a list of every time that you argued your husband into submission where you won his love by fighting him just go back knock yourself out you're probably going to find it but now we'll tell you this how many times have i come home problems at the mission problems at the church i'm tired i'm wore out and i walk in the house and i haven't eaten all day and i said you know there's nothing to eat why haven't i mean where's the food and and i'm impatient and everything else and my wife comes out and says something like this look just said i don't care i'm tired i'm this i'm that and you're being judgmental and you don't know what's going on and everything else the war just started she feels justified i feel justified let's go at it but i can tell you this i come home i'm impatient hungry it's a horrible day this that it's nothing to eat honey what is going on i mean i work all day white you know i'm and she just says i'm very sorry i'll get something on the table pretty quick um then i look from him well what happened well bronwyn's been sick all day she's been throwing up and i've been with her then i go like this um excuse me i go outside the house there's a wood shed oak hickory works well ochre hickory board usually about three feet long you grab it like this then you beat yourself in the forehead for about an hour and then you go back in and you ask for forgiveness from your wife look what she just did her godliness heaped hot coals on my head she gave me no justification i mean i never do have justification but in my own twisted mind she gave me no justification she didn't fight fire with fighters she didn't fight evil with evil and when she does that i'll be honest with you when when she is this woman like this she owns me she owns me she literally owns me when i walk in the house and there's a a sweet spirit not servitude here's your slippers not just walk in and there's just a kindness a sweetness she will disarm me you know like i've heard the ladies say you know the man is the head and the the woman is the neck and moves the head any way she wants but literally when when her kindness a gentle spirit and you're also going to find out ladies we all get older don't we us guys get older we you know ladies get older we're not like we were when we were 20. well maybe we are there's just more of us um but when she acts like a woman bearing the fruit of the spirit and demonstrates respect toward me and i see a gentle and quiet spirit she's more beautiful than the day i married her you see and she tells me um because of my my heart attack and everything else my physical has but i i always work out she sometimes comes out and she goes why are you still doing this you old man well you think you're bruce lee but she's told me so many times she said paul you don't understand a woman just i appreciate you lift weights you do all this stuff punch the bag and the dog and everything else but she said you know what makes you handsome affection looking at me being kind to me doing things with me like cooking or something she goes that's attractive she because i don't care if you have a little belly she said what's attractive it's just that and isn't that amazing that we're all going to lose the physical we're all going to you know face gundrup different things like that but we can increase in these things that are genuinely attractive isn't that amazing we can we really can but it see here's the thing um stuart scott i think wrote the book exemplary husband you know what i like about that book he kind of does in some way what i did in russia it's like when are you gonna start talking about marriage i mean he talks about marriage from the get-go but the whole thing is his premise is biblical he's like your problem isn't really anything other than gentlemen you're not like jesus if you're like jesus then everything's gonna turn out okay you see now just a couple other things um then we'll do questions the if you have a strong wife just realize this i always tell guys hey guys your sons need you and then i go and your daughters they need you more yes daughters need their dad more than sons need their dad and then third your wife needs you more you see i know women who say you know my children are everything well then you're wrong you know the best thing you can do for your children lady dear sister is respect your husband do you know the best thing you can do for your children gentlemen brothers love your wife they're going to go wow my dad's not going anywhere we're secure do you see that also think about it brother you kind of just mistreat your wife don't expect that your daughter when she sees that is going to raise her standard when she goes look for man you're inconsiderate with your wife you don't serve your wife you don't and and you're rude to your wife and you yell at your wife this is what your daughter's going to think well this is just the way marriage is they don't have a very high standard do you want that or you see your sons are they going to treat their wives like you treat their mother do you see or do ladies really want your daughter to make her husband's life extremely difficult because all she's ever had as an example of a wife was a wife that questioned her husband at every step and literally destroyed any thought he had of being a man do you see how sins can just go and go and go where i have most failed is in being faithful to my children with regard to the study of scripture and discipleship and everything but looking at my wife as a person so strong that she just you know she was a part of the family bible study now i should have spent more time with her around the kitchen table reading scripture praying with her talking to her not preaching to her but sharing with her and she sharing with me and being in the scriptures all right so let's open it up for questions if anybody has a question okay all right the a strong woman is still an obedient woman obedient to the lord look let me give an example when they told my wife look your husband just died you know i had those three my heart stopped three times they said even if he survives he's going to be an institution i know exactly what my wife did she didn't cry she hurt and there would be a time to cry but i know my wife when she heard the news she went i got four kids to race i don't have time to cry right now i don't need them to see me afraid she's a strong woman she's an intelligent woman she knows and she she knows a lot she can show me things i don't know she can show me where i'm wrong she can talk to me as an equal she has a strong spirit a strong will there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's obedient it's one of the problems i have you know with with some of the homes not all of it but some of the homeschooling you know they're raising up girls to just kind of pride and prejudice wear pride and prejudice dresses and do calligraphy and wait for a husband have you seen some of these young men your daughters need to learn how to take care of themselves [Music] i want a daughter who is like that proverbs 31 woman i want a daughter who can stand by her husband i want a daughter who's like her mother he's capable and strong and intelligent and if my wife's intimidating to you it's not so much saying something about her it's saying something about you gentlemen so that this woman who is strong in the lord okay and sometimes i have to admit my wife's a little bit too strong i told her one day i said you know one of our problems is if a man knocked down our front door and i was down in the basement if a man knocked down our front door standing there with two machetes machetes with blood all over him gonna come in you wouldn't even call me and she goes because there'd be no reason to one time someone said to me you mean you went down to the other tribe and you left your wife there with the tribal people and the tribal people loved her and they would have protected her from anything i said yeah what if somebody attacks i said well i guess i'll pay for their hospital bill the thing is is there is a strength in a woman that doesn't eliminate her femininity and her difference and i tell young men you you want a woman who is intelligent who has studied another thing if if you know in homeschooling do you know homeschooling in many ways has failed because it's raised up a bunch of boys that the girls call jelly beans why because they were raised by their mom and so men need to be involved in that but in homeschooling your wife needs to be a theologian she needs to know about history she needs to be a very intelligent woman and if i drop dead which is very possible i've already done it three times i can't even die right if i drop dead my wife's going to take care of three children now i've done things as a man that i should have done with regard to if i die this will be taken care of this will take but that doesn't eliminate the fact my wife is going to take control and buddy she will be able to so that's that type of strength that does not contradict everything else the bible says about a woman who is a gentle spirit okay another question i just wanted to know if you had any advice for single parents trying to raise their children at a biblical standard yes um here's the thing i had someone ask me yesterday very good question but they said you know how do i as a woman assume the role of a mother and a father well you don't you don't you you the same way that if my wife perished i couldn't assume the role of a mother if if you're a single mom be the best mother you can be if you need to be in a biblical church where some of the men in the church would always be watching over a widow or someone who has been separated always watching over them if there are boys if they're things to help them and teach them take them fishing and all these things and then to pray that you know another family could be formed but but the thing about it is is god is the father to the orphan and the husband to the widow and so you you can't move into that role you know because you've got to understand something a lot of times well you know there's no father to discipline my wife is latin so my children want me there to protect them from their mother so it's a little different i'm just kidding every time i get i got to do those jokes every time but what you need to understand is a lot of times like the father's the disciplinarian and the mother is not no they're supposed to be perfect agreement so that if dad's out of the picture discipline continues the same i teach my boys now i have one son six five and he's not afraid of me he's afraid of his mom but they know that to not listen to their mother is to not listen to me they know i'm going to back their mother and so she's going to be able to continue on being a mother because there's so much agreement between her as a mother and me as a father and and that's so important now here's the thing men in a biblical church you see a woman and she's got two boys one of them's nine and one of them some 11 and she's going to have her hands full with taking care of her children working whatever she has to do this is where a church comes in and says a man says i'm gonna take my boys fishing on saturday would your boys like to come with me you know doing things like that that's part of being in a biblical church it's taking care of a single woman and her children not just financially or spiritually but also helping them in life another question yes ma'am brother you just scared me when he said but one bad thing about movement is that it's producing jelly mm-hmm because we either because we've been on the field or been doing other things we have had to do homeschooling and there's never seemed like a good alternative and i'm just wondering what counsel you would give to families to yeah well first of all i home school so i mean we home school men need to be very careful when they sit huh yeah men uh men always say you know i'll ask me and why go to a conference how many of you men homeschool and they raise their hands and i said now keep your hands up how many of you men home school or you're just married to a woman who does all the homeschooling okay so one of the thing is homeschooling is not mother schooling it's homeschooling now um so my wife does most of the academic stuff because i'm i'm i'm working i'm at the mission she does most academic stuff we talk about things things like that but she's at home the one doing the stuff all right but this is more than education is more than just academics all right so who's going to teach them bible me okay but here's the thing i told my boys you're not playing football you're not in a school where you're playing football you're not in wrestling and this or that so here's what we're going to do first of all you're going to work you are going to work when my boy was 14 he was doing his home school and he was working construction you're going to work all right another thing you're going to do you're going to lift weights now if we lived on a farm that wouldn't be necessary i'd have you out there hauling hay and tackling bulls and all that kind of stuff but we're not so you're going to lift weights you are not going to have soft hands i am not none of this uh little bitty bicep building weights you're going to be powerlifting you're going to be dead lifting you're gonna be throwing live pigs across the garage and you're gonna you're gonna fight you're gonna do these things now as you get older and you go dad i don't you know i don't want to fight anymore but i do know how to defend myself dead okay you're going to keep doing exercise you're going to do things that press you make you sweat make you hurt i knew one guy he was brilliant you look at his backyard and it's like there's a pallet over here on one side with bricks about this high you know cinderblocks and over there an empty pallet and i said what's that he goes discipline because it reaches and that you don't you know spank a child at a certain age don't spank a boy at a certain age what do you do he said well i don't speak him in a certain age i said what do you do he goes uh the blocks what do you mean the blocks they disobey their mom that boy goes out and moves all those blocks over there takes about two and a half hours although he is getting a little faster at it he said i had another boy you know he every when they got a certain age so every discipline was so many push-ups he said when my boy went to the marines he won every award with push-ups and pull-ups in there the most disobedient kid you've ever seen but now he's a good marine so there needs to be a toughness there needs to be a toughness but guys also um you know you also don't leave your daughter out of that my wife and i three days before my wife found out she was pregnant with our first child we were down in the bottoms hauling out oak logs about eight inches in diameter about like this i had on my shoulder and she had it on hers and we're walking out of the forest my wife can work and so my daughters need to know how to work and my daughter at 10 killed her first deer she can shoot the eyes out of a cricket with a gun so it's not just i'm going to make the boys all tough i'm asked you want to go around if you think you can take me dad i'll go around with you you know so it's it's it's you've got and this is the father's job primarily you have got to realize i'm not going to be able to be the big hero in the ministry all the time i've got children to race and part of that is doing stuff with them you know if you can do some kind of you know i'm not people think i'm totally against sports i'm not i'm against the idolatry of it but but these guys need to run they need to sweat they need to hurt they need to wrestle there needs to be an element of fear they need to grow up you see and and and i have no problem i know many of you probably get angry about it but you know with my daughter we like my wife said i want my daughter to be able i want her to have a husband standing there beside her but what if a husband's not standing there beside her my wife says i want her to be able to do a smackdown on that guy i said okay as long as it's not at her husband she does that so there's a there's a beauty and strength for women also and no it doesn't turn them into masculine it's just a beauty my daughter loves to run she likes to hunt she likes to fish and that's why i tell you guys that that's the way she's made she likes that stuff and and so i tell you you know if your your sons need you as a dad your daughters need you more and so you're going to have to invent ways to give them that thing that they don't get because they're just locked in a house you see another question um so so it's not on oh there it is um so when i was saved my daughter was about 10 and pretty much for that first 10 years of her life she didn't get much discipline at all and i was also single for the first half of that and i had her all the time and kind of let her run amok and now as a christian i'm trying to instill discipline do you have any recommendations on discipline for like a 12 year old girl 13 almost 13. um here's the thing that you need to understand if you start with discipline and i am not talking about child abuse i'm not talking about beating i'm talking about discipline ordered consecutive intelligent discipline if you start that when the child is born then you know the first six years are the developmental stage of that child some say more some say less but when you instill a sense of discipline in them then you'd be amazed how little you have to discipline children you just be amazed okay and it starts out by simply no you know the mother knows that's a cry of a baby who's afraid i need to go to it and that's a cry of a baby manipulating their mom i don't know how moms know that but they know it and and it all starts there now when you come to a sense where where okay this hasn't happened and now the child is a certain age one of the things that you've really got to realize is this give me your heart my son get in this case give me your heart uh my daughter i see people trying to do discipline and they have not created a relationship they're making demands but it's like who's this stranger making demands i one of the jobs of a father is to win their children's heart to become the person that they know the child knows this dad of mine loves me he spends time with me he does all these things with me and it's that one that's what needs to be i won't necessarily see the what is a first step but an ongoing step in process is winning their heart winning their heart and then when discipline has to happen which in hurry now again people would disagree with me on this but there reaches a point where i know people talk about physical discipline there reaches a point where i think in her case anything like that is going to be demeaning and degrading to her and i do believe that and i believe in discipline trust me but there comes a point when your child is a certain age that it's it creates a bitterness it's demeaning and it just doesn't seem right to me but now it's the case of privileges of losing privileges of doing this and that but as you increase the discipline you can only do that to the degree that you're increasing that relationship and you're explaining and showing now let me use that to go off of something have you heard men say this maybe even women say this i don't spend a lot of time with my child but i spend quality time with my child have you ever heard that it's a lie look have any of you ever had like really special moments in prayer where it was just really unusual was isn't it true that those special moments were the result of countless countless hours that weren't so special countless days that weren't so special you can't plan quality time you can't schedule quality time quality time comes out of a quantity of time i mean i may have spent a lot of time with my son one of my sons or my daughter and and do a lot of different things and everything and have conversations and everything go eat ice cream and everything or something and then all of a sudden something happens and a door opens up and there's a real conversation about real things that endears us and unites us together so quality time comes out of a quantity of time so the first thing i would be thinking about is winning her heart also teaching her like just look for a moment real quick look at this um chapter uh 2 timothy chapter 3 verse 16. i have a sermon on why you should never discipline your children okay i put these titles because it kind of freaks people out and they think i'm going to listen to this you know verse 16 all scripture is inspired by god and profitable for teaching for reprove for correction for training in righteousness now most people never do this with their children they don't teach their children the word of god really teach them the word of god so the child doesn't really know the word then they do not reprove their child which means present to them the evidence that they're wrong and then presenting them the evidence they don't correct their child the child heaven falling over in disobedience literally it means to set the child back up again so then they don't like okay son instead of hitting that other boy with the toy john deere tractor what should we have done do you see they don't take that step correction and then they don't train they don't train a child let me give an example we had just gotten in this house this was years and years ago it was kind of in the woodsy area and i'm sitting there studying and ian he was about four i don't know something like that wow man and so he runs out of his bedroom across the living room where i am opens up the door slams it put the book down ian yes dad come here don't slam the door okay i go sit down five minutes later he comes running in slam now is that rebellion is he rebelling against his father he's not and this is something you need to recognize he wasn't rebelling he's a kid he's excited about being in the woods he probably just saw some lizard that he could barbecue i don't know something happened okay he's excited so does he need to be disciplined no what does he need training so runs into the you know his bedroom to get a bazooka or something and comes back out ian stop yes dad remember what i said about the door oh yeah okay once you go the door i want you to open it up i don't hear sound i want you to close it i want you ok i want you to open it back up again i want you to come in i want you to close it i want to hear a sound i want you to do that two more times okay back and forth back and forth and then he's out playing 10 minutes later opens up door runs in slams the door and goes oh like that and he looks at me and i go do it again do it again you know the problem with that it takes time dad you say my kids don't know how to act in a restaurant put out a table you got one in your kitchen right put a meal out teach them how to act at a restaurant teach them how to act in a restaurant by teaching them how to act at home you train them i teach people how to do archery how to do primitive archery it's not that easy it starts with your feet i can give you a book on how to shoot a primitive longbow and you can read everything in there but you're not trained you can't shoot the bow you can't pull back the string so then you're going to come over after you read that book and i'm going to show you hand placement feet placement what you do with your eyes what you do with your hand where your elbows should be where your fingers should be everything and then you're going to do it hundreds of times until it's muscle memory and a turkey runs by and you just go like that and shoot it same way in fighting you know i was a little i was like all right i'm gonna go beat y'all kung fu bruce lee everything you know and i was so bored because like well how was class it was horrible what'd you do i just went like this a thousand times it was no fun at all and then one day you walk in and all of a sudden you see a fist go like this and you drop and whoa that was cool you're trying you see what i'm saying there's training most people don't train their children what do they do they don't even give them a command but when they violate something that annoys the parent they get mad and say you need to be disciplined no that's terrible do you see that so there is a long step of things before you get to disciplining a child and if you're not willing to do these things then what gives you the right to just go in there and start disciplining so let's go back look teach them and that's not just teach them the bible let's teach them how to shake a man's hand firm grip look them in the eye stand up straight teach them how to handle adversity to teach them reproof tell them when they're wrong and give them evidence show them why it's wrong correct them don't just tell them they're wrong set them up and put them on the right path this is how you should have responded okay and then go on training train them in that path train them in that path so that it becomes instead of muscle memory it just becomes spiritual memory it just becomes who they are so so that would be my okay next question yeah this is more for parents who haven't grown up in the church and got saved after they've already had children if you have professing children from ages 6 to 12 what last night you preached them the gospel what would their day-to-day walk with the lord look like for like a six or a nine year old who are just kids so for parents what can we look for and aid them in their daily one with regard to whether they're a christian or not yeah they're professing christians okay if you're teaching your children catechizing your children family devotions whatever you want to call it they're going to a biblical church where they're doing more than painting pictures of noah's ark if they're really being taught then you're going to have you're going to talk about faith in christ and how we need to have faith in christ and you're going to have your children at very young ages most of them say things like daddy i believe daddy i believe uh a lot of children came up last night we were here until late and and so so a child comes up to you and says daddy i believe what do you believe i believe i believe in jesus what do you believe about you i believe jesus died for me are you trusting in him yes daddy i am i'm trusting in him okay now what happens in most evangelical churches they baptize them next week right when my children would come up to me and say i'm believing in jesus and i look through it look at the promises and i'd say okay explain to me this promise what does that mean and there would be some reality okay what would i do baptize them no crush them no you don't look at them and say you don't believe you don't understand yet you're not a christian what no here's what i would always do okay you are telling me that that you believe yes you're trusting yes and that you have a sense in which god has saved you yes wonderful you see that i'm not going to crush it wonderful this is extraordinary but because it's extraordinary and because you're so young here's what my responsibility is now you and i will just continue going on like we do and i'm going to watch your life and you're going to watch your life and the elders are going to watch your life because you're so young if you're believing yes you're a christian and you're saved but because you're so young we're just going to keep teaching you and watching you and if you know and then when there comes that day when we all just have this yes confidence the elders and others then yes you'll be baptized and it's usually okay dad great do you see what i'm doing there i'm not saying no because i don't know they could be converted god could convert a child but to rush that child through absolutely not i'm going to keep studying the bible keep telling them to believe keep teaching them what it is i'll give you an example my son came to me one of my sons came to me when he was about i don't know 10 and he said dad i said what he goes last night i couldn't sleep why he said dad the presence of christ was so real i couldn't sleep i just stayed up in my bunk it was so real i believe god has saved me okay let's just keep studying scripture you get wonderful son thank you for telling me that that's amazing that's extraordinary let's just keep studying the scriptures and going on with the lord about a year and a half later so i don't exactly remember how much time it was i'll never forget he was coming up the steps the basement he said dad can i talk to you i said yeah he said i've been reading through the gospel of john okay what have you learned dad you're not saved because you stayed up all night even because you had a sense that the presence of christ was so real you know you're saved because you find yourself believing in christ and trusting in him alone okay dad i think i need to be baptized and then i hit him wonderful go talk to the elders what will you call them no will you come with me no wow i'm popular that's him calling um he must know i'm using it as an illustration i said no son you have made a profession of faith in christ you will go to the elders and he went to our elders and praise god we do have elders and they sat down with him they didn't pray a prayer with him and they didn't ask him some little question that already had the answer in it they met with him a couple of times so here's here's a boy sitting there grown men talking to him just like they would talk to a grown man now evan explained to us what's going on and after a while evan they talked to me we have all the reason to believe your son is just a genuine conversion do you see that you see the difference then okay let's baptize bobby but also we're not going to crush him and say no we're going to wait but if you tell your child that this matter is so extraordinary at a young age that there's that you as a father have the stewardship to wait and to watch and to pray and to teach until we're sure that christ is formed you usually won't have a problem next question uh yeah so growing up in a non-christian home and then you're converted the difference of oh i was a sinner and now i'm not or i guess i know that i was a sinner so to speak is very as clear and there or at least it should be when a child grows up in a christian home how do you avoid or deter from the like them being self-righteous yeah and even thinking about the question that was that asked in the qa and that kind of okay all humans have a tendency towards self-righteousness that's part of our corruption that's a great question here is how you do it by not being a self-righteous dad by showing your children teaching your children what the bible says about sin what the bible says about their dad what the bible says about their mom that christ is the only answer christ is the only answer christ is the only answer also when you fathers listen to me this is so powerful when you sin against your child by being impatient or raising your voice in an inappropriate manner or being angry or losing control or anything you go to your child and you either sit down in front of that child or you stand there with a child and this is what you say i need to talk to you dad is very very sad why i have sinned against you i was impatient with you name the sin i was in pain not if i was impatient with you treat this as you would an adult i have sinned against you i was impatient with you please forgive me you know what your child is going to do don't let them do this that's okay dad that's okay dad now don't start rebuking the child just look at them and say let's say your daughter's name is sally no sally it's not okay and i really need you right now what do you mean dad i need you to release me i need you to forgive me and to have your little daughter and this has happened to me hear that and put her hands like this on your shoulder and go dad you sinned against me you were impatient with me but dad i forgive you and i love you you want a cure for self-righteousness not faking it this is real this is real and you will have no matter how many times you tell your children they're going to come back with that's okay dad you guys say no it wasn't okay and i need you to recognize that what your dad did wasn't okay and that you need to please forgive your dad you see so listen look if adults if you were moving in the context of adults and and what what sometimes people do is they know they sinned against somebody or they were impatient with some bare anger or somebody they don't say anything they just the next time they meet them they try to make up for that by being nice that doesn't work it's not biblical do you see that it's not biblical if you do that with your husband yeah i just yelled at my husband but when he comes back in the room i'll be nice to him that doesn't work there's a problem here there's a breach same way with your wife it doesn't work it's a breach but if if you just walked around the way you do with your children having sinned against them everyone would think you were a hypocrite or that you were self-righteous and didn't see your sin or that you were proud wouldn't they all the adults would think that well children are a lot smarter than what you think they are oh dad talks about that but i mean he's impatient when he came home didn't say anything and it's worse when they hear their dad get up on sunday morning and teach on patience you talk about embittering a heart so they start seeing dad is he dad sins too and my dad needs christ i need christ guys brokenness and humbling yourself is always the way the calvary wrote okay next question check check check on a more subjective note when you talk about cross-cultural marriages in the interest of figuring out my blind spots because otherwise they wouldn't be blind do you see anything in latin american culture that just needs to be put to death oh brother not any more than any other culture uh we all come from sinful cultures what we don't want to do is we we don't want i'm a midwest farm boy raised on a cattle ranch that's what i am i don't need to be anything else other than what i am okay but i need to be a sanctified that my wife is from a metropolitan you know latin american city lima peru she's also lived in bolivia in paraguay and spain for a little while and that's who she is and i i love her i was made for that kind of woman i love her all she needs is that she doesn't need to stop being latin she just needs to sanctify it and throw the chunkle less no she just so there's this beauty and that's what i hate about what's going on in the world it seems like they're trying to take away all the differences when i got to latin america i was there were so many things that i never saw before like just the vibrance the relationships that the different things that i loved so like when i train missionaries and they talk about what about our cultural training our cultural sensitivity i say if you're a man filled with the holy spirit walking humbly bearing the fruit of the spirit you're going to be all right all we need is latins filled with the holy spirit and gringo's filled with the holy spirit and russians filled with the holy spirit and africans and african-americans filled with the holy spirit and indians filled with the holy spirit and it'll take care of itself but never stop being what god made you to be never never never never my wife is is still a latin woman and i wouldn't want her to be anything else and she's growing in sanctification that's the same way with you you see god not only made men and women different he gave us the beauty of cultures the beauty of everything about them they just need to be sanctified and that's all and so you grow in christ are you latin america just sir yeah i'm sorry i in my family we i have seen a tendency where the men just kind of step backwards yeah and then women being strong just kind of spill in and that's for women to be strong is wonderful but for men to step backwards and give the responsibility to women and and where the women have to do all these different things that's wrong but that's in every culture to some degree so so don't think so much about my culture just think about what is the standard the standard is jesus christ now what you don't want to do is overreact and i've seen this oh my goodness so you got these you got these young men who basically don't need a wife they need a mother okay but then on the other hand you get young men who recognize that's wrong and they become these hyper authoritarian little hitlers and you don't need that either we need to be christ-like and and i can't sit here and give you 20 steps to doing that i can just say read the gospels read the gospels read the epistles read the bible read the old testament new testament and as you do you're going to be conformed to that image of christ who is the only perfect husband of a bride and that's all you have to worry about is there another question can you speak on the subject of parental authority as it would relate to an adult daughter who may not be living in the home yes ephesians chapter 6. verse 1 children obey your parents and the lord for this is right honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise children obey your parents and the lord children obey your parents in the lord i believe that there are a couple of things it we need to be very careful but um here's some of the things i want you to consider children are always to honor their mother and father even when they're adults and out of the home but once adults are outside of that child parent context all right they should seek the counsel of their mother and father they should seek the counsel of their elders but there's a difference between an adult child honoring their mother and father by seeking their counsel and a six-year-old honoring their father and mother um the more for example my little child bronwyn if i go across the walmart parking lot i'm gonna hold her hand i'm not going to hold ian's hand who's six foot five because as they grow as they develop they have to assume more and more responsibility of who they are before the lord my goal is not to keep my children under my authority for the rest of their life my goal is to teach my children to be godly men and godly women they go out and form another family group that's apart from me now i do believe even even when i was an adult i would honor my mother who was still living and i would ask her counsel on things even as an adult but i'm an adult i'm a man i'm a man i'm outside of the house i'm making my own living i'm doing what i'm doing my mother's not going to come to me and say you can't buy that car my mother can't come to me and say you can't marry that girl nor could my dad unless the girl is outside of the parameters of what's required for a christian to marry then they can speak with authority you see the more a child is immature the parents must teach them the word of god and in some sense mold their conscience and be over them with commands but when that child leaves the home the child should honor their parents but that doesn't mean they're always going to obey their parents let me give an example an illustration i used the other day actually in a sermon that i had to do for spain let's say there's an adult girl she's a christian she's 25 and her parents are christians and she sees this young man who is either an unbeliever or very immature and she wants to go out with him now she's an adult she's living outside of the home the parents have the authority of scripture to tell her no they can't enforce it they can't put her in jail they can't but they have the biblical authority to say no why unequally yoked the elders have her have the authority to tell her no why unequally yoked why she's in direct violation of a biblical command but and ladies you will appreciate this saying oh if only this would happen to me so this young lady she's a christian her parents are christian and there are three different young men vying for her attention all three of them are the most handsome man you've ever seen all three of them have the spirituality of the apostle paul and all three of them are multi-millionaires and she's got to make a choice now you know i'm kidding but all these young men are godly no one including the elders or anyone has the authority to say you should marry this one that's that's insane now they can give counsel but they have no authority over her conscience because she's not violating any command there okay now but also i would tell the young lady or the young man in the same instance although there is no binding authority you're not violating scripture by marrying any one of these three persons if if the elders and your parents and everyone else gives counsel that's unified that is contrary to your counsel are contrary to what you want to do it doesn't mean you have to do what they're saying but it would be for a wise person a yellow flag to maybe hold back why are the authorities in my life even though i'm an adult saying this way instead of that way but i i have literally seen cases where there were adult children who their parents still believed they held rain over them in matters of conscience and would demand that's i don't think that's what the bible's teaching thank you and and one of the things my wife my wife loves our children she loves them but she is so like she goes she goes these mothers you know that all sad their little boys leaving the home and everything like that she goes they just need a high five in the face with a chair she goes this is what we're preparing for them for we want to rejoice when our young men leave our homes and and and and find a young lady we're rejoicing in that yes there's a little bittersweet in it but this is the reason we're mothers you know mom are you gonna be sad when i leave no i got a sewing room when you leave you know of course just just joking but um but oh let me share with you something this is really important are there seat belts on that those chairs a husband neglects his wife for years but the wife has a son and so what happens is this all the affection assurance love comfort intimacy that she's not getting from her husband her world becomes her son her husband does nothing i mean dead fish she gets nothing from him so all her affections and joy life and love it's this little boy and a little boy grows up a godly girl comes into his life and the mother hates her can't stand her why because that girl just stole her substitute husband that girl's not good enough for my boy how dare she come in here and take my son you see how twisted that is you say yeah that woman's got a problem yeah and her problem's her husband he neglected her she found affection not in another man she didn't commit adultery but in her children and oh anybody take her children away from her she'll suffocate her children do you see what i'm saying have you seen it some of you've probably done it your wife should not be dependent upon your children her children for everything she's supposed to be receiving from her man so if you've ever wondered why some other in-laws have such a reputation this is part of it and why a young lady who can just be a normal young lady immature but a good girl and loves the boy is treated so poorly some of you getting real quiet but it all begins with what she was looking for affection she didn't get it from her husband she was too moral to get it from another man and unknowingly even for her she was getting it from her children and children aren't made for that they're not made to sustain that they're not made to carry that burden at all do you see so gentlemen you know how this thing of train of sin trained one thing leads to another to another to another to another well i just showed you didn't i now who does it trace back to has the woman sinned yeah but let's keep going the man has sinned he's neglected his wife gentlemen there is a real problem i know it because i have a solid trustworthy wife there's a real problem with having a solid trustworthy wife shouldn't eat anything you think and yet she's screaming inside and ladies let me tell you something your husband is not as what would you say he's not a trunk of wood like you think he's sitting there a lot of times going if you're sitting there going if only he would love me if only he would open doors for me if only he would speak with me tenderly if only he would just let me talk and talk and talk and talk and talk if only he would do that and your husband's sitting there if only she honored me because she only respected me i mean my i work every day that was my wife i'm trouble now um he's sitting there i work hard every day with a bunch of bad men it's evil it's a hard world i'm tired if only i felt like do you see what's going on yeah you're both being insensitive you're both not recognizing and you're both embittering each other you see and so men also men want respect women want love and that doesn't mean women don't want respect and men don't want love but if you had to pinpoint those things that there's where you need to go there's where you need to go okay another question okay i'll answer this and this might be a big one could you talk about some or about maintaining joy in the home when you have constant demands and negativity in the household from unconverted children do you have any practical advice what was that again that was a big can you talk about maintaining joy in the home when you have constant demands and negativity from unconverted children do you have any practical advice to give the first practical advice was this is where dad steps in you see this is where dad steps in and when i know that my boys have been a handful when i know my boys have been a handful and it doesn't have anymore they've grown up they're they're a joy when they were young fighting everything that they would do just and my wife i get home and it's frazzled boys let's go down the basement i do the same thing with my daughter just differently a little bit but boys let's go down the basement what will dad do to an another man who hurts his wife what will dad do to another man is making his wife life miserable well dad you wouldn't allow it exactly i come home your mom's in there crying and you did it now we can do this easy way or we can do this easy way because for me both ways are easy i got that saying from my wife i thought it was so cool and i look at them and i mean i'm angry i'm controlled but i want them to know i'm mad you need to realize something boys she is the apple of my eye she is the apple of my eye this will not happen again i don't care if you're three i don't care if you're 30. you will not do this because that woman is my woman is my wife and i will defend her even from you do you understand me yes dad do you understand me yes dad with my daughter speech would be a little bit different but it will be she needs to be tough because i'm gonna say tough things to her dad needs to step in and go look you wanna mess with somebody bring it on you don't mess with her if i come home and she's distraught and she's hurting and everything else i'm the one you have to deal with now there are guys here tougher than me more man than me everything else and i recognize that i've seen some of you pretty big boys but we forget don't we if a man walked into your house and you came home and your wife was crying i guess i'd buy him flowers you would hurt him you'd stop him you'd do everything in your power but we got to think that way with everybody we're not going to go you know hit our children we're not going to do but this is where there did you know that there are times to be angry and sin not my boys have seen that out of their dad you're not going to do this no but then be very very careful don't let them be justified and saying but dad you do it dad you make her miserable dad she's cried with you you see but men she you're you know oh it's all about the children it's all about children no man should say it's all about my wife i love my children i'll die for them but it's all about my wife a wife should say no no no like the boys would get mad say you know dad this this that she go that's enough because if you want to know who i'm standing with i'm standing with your dad do you see that do you see that this is so important and many of you guys probably never even thought of that and a lot of things that i'm telling you don't think oh gosh paul discovered all this no i was very fortunate to have very godly men help me and tell me a lot of the things i'm telling you you see but these are things that the man there's no way to stop this except through the father because a mother should not be put in the position of being her own defender in this situation the dad should step in i love you children i'll die for you but you're not going to hurt your mom it's not going to happen in this house and i love you but it's not going to happen here and that's very very important now don't get all you know in their face and acting but just let them know it's not gonna happen okay and and that's the way you handle it all right i i'm finished my four minutes okay all right god bless you

Channel: I'll Be Honest

Views: 186,805

Rating: 4.9191842 out of 5

Keywords: Paul Washer, parenting, marriage, children, husband, father

Id: saLNPagopjQ

Length: 116min 39sec (6999 seconds)

Published: Sat May 01 2021