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Dr. Irwin "Rocky" Freeman
Amazing, you see these men, same here, many of them Christians, they go down and little secretaries, you know how she comes through, you know, they'll break their necks to open that door, you follow me?
Secretaries never open the door for themselves when they have a building. These guys say, let me get that for you, boy they open it up, you see their wife, their wife, they'll go in the door and door hit their wife, knock their wife back out in the parking lot.
But lean on that little girl, boy, you know, hold that chair for her, let me get that chair for you. The wife go down there and she'll look at somebody, she'll stand there forever waiting on somebody to hold her chair.
Open the car door, why? Open the car door for a wife, why that's absurd, you got to get in that car, you got to go. It's a matter of courtesy, why not, why would I not want to do more for my wife than I would anyone else?
Same thing about finances, it's amazing how many guys go out and have coffee and everybody's sitting there and somebody'll have a little breakfast sandwich and he'll say, let me get that, I got it, let me get it, and he'll get it.
The wife says, sweetheart, do you think we might take the kids down to McDonald's and just get a Coke and maybe buy more French fries? What do you think, I'm made out of money? Do you think money grows on trees?
We don't have that kind of money, but he can treat the guys, he can go to Civitan Rotary Lions Club, pay his dues there, growl like a tiger, growl man, sitting in there all this stuff, like some kind of an animal.
And he'll spend all that money, and it's amazing how much money a man has to do with his buddies and his friends, but he doesn't have enough to do with his children and his wife. It's interesting, even though none of us may have a great sum of funds available to us, but many men in their marriages hold back from their families and treat their families less than they treat people in the community.
And that is part of the problem. And then, the wife said, he shifts all the blame on me for all the family errors. One of the things that is so difficult to get men to do is to recognize that they're not perfect.
And to get a man to say, not I'm sorry, I'm sorry is a bad word, I'm sorry means you got caught doing something. But to say, will you forgive me? Son, your dad is wrong. Will you forgive me? Most teenage boys never hear a dad say that.
Most teenage girls never hear a dad or mom say, forgive me, I was wrong. Why do we feel we have to always be right? It would be nice, but we are not. And they know we're not, and it will encourage them if they know we know we are not always right.
Then, I mentioned in here just a few moments ago about love. Let me just touch for a brief moment on some, and I'll not get into it too much, but I think it needs to be amplified upon or clarified somewhat.
And that is, if you deal with someone who is having sexual difficulties in their marriage. You have to be extremely careful of number one is what you hear. Number two is what you want to listen to. And number three is whether or not you can help them even if you listen to it.
There are some things you don't even want to listen to. And then of course the setting in which you are listening to that. But you and I must understand that many of the problems that people have sexually in the young marriages today.
One of their biggest problems is in this area. And it can be solved of course most of the time through premarital counseling. With a good solid pastor or a good solid minister of youth or a good solid minister of music or a good solid deacon.
Or someone who is competent and able and knows how to counsel with these people about different areas. Instead of talking about compatibility, talk about sex with them. Talk about money with them. Talk about budgets with them.
Talk about their relationships. Instead of talking about, well now you need to have a godly home. They'll understand that readily. Talk about those things. Show them how to set up a family devotion. Show them how to do these things.
But cover the different areas that are going to be critical to them. And we just don't do that sometimes. But many of the sex problems that people have. And I'll just use those two words. Sex problems instead of sexual difficulties.
It takes longer to say sexual difficulties for me. They grow out of the fact simply that sex is a very vital force. And I don't understand sometimes when Christian people. We are reticent to speak about that subject which is such a vital force in humanity.
And in our churches we are reticent to speak about it. We feel like it's taboo. We shouldn't discuss it somewhere. But I believe the only place that you can get good solid answer is from the word of God.
And the Bible. And anything that else is taught has to conform to biblical principles. And I believe a pastor who has trained himself is as competent. And if not more so than anyone else to speak upon that subject to the community.
And that can be done in the context of the church. But we want to get this information of course from other places. And you and I know that that is not true. It's a vital force in life. Another source of these problems is that because sex has such an integrative nature.
It is so integrative in life itself. It's so integrative in everything that you do. And it's integrative in personalities. And it can overshadow. It can undercut. It can undermine. It can do so many things within the personality without even realizing it.
And then another problem is that today in our world so many illegitimate children. In the United States two out of every ten children that are born is an illegitimate child. Two out of every ten is an illegitimate child.
And most of the time the discovery has been that when a young lady has an illegitimate child. That person will usually be caught up for some years. If not for the rest of their life in illicit relationships.
Because of fear. Because of shame. Because of embarrassment. Many things they will be caught up in. They'll just go live with someone. They'll just go live with them without getting counseling. Without getting married and etc.
And then I might just say this about illegitimate children. We have found and we'll talk about it perhaps. But in case I don't speak on it because I don't know if it's in there or not. Concerning spiritual warfare.
We usually find that adopted children are special targets of attack by the enemy. And for the simple reason is because a parent somewhere down the line. Their real parent says I don't want them. And anytime a parent says I don't want that child.
Satan says I do. I do. And he begins to set up a work in that life. And we have found so many adopted children who have had such serious problems in their life. Because of the enemy setting up a foundation.
And again we kind of misconceive that just because we are Christians. That we are immune to the assaults and the attacks of the enemy of course. Which is not true. And so this is what happens with illegitimacy.
And then of course problems in this area derive or result from a great variation in sex drives. In counseling someone who has a sexual difficulty. Never use yourself as the standard. Never use yourself as a standard.
Don't use any other person as a standard. Talk to them about their life. Their needs. Their drives. Speak to them because every person is unique. Every person is an individual. There are certain general principles you may speak with and you may concern yourself about.
But the drives are different. And a husband and wife will have different drives. And they need to discuss this. And so sex problems or problems with these difficulties will arrive simply because of a lack of wholesome sex education.
If you have teenagers. Let me just bring it right down. How many parents do you know who have sat down with their young people and say. As a husband and a wife. Why do we think the dad ought to go talk to the son.
And the wife ought to talk to the daughter. And neither should talk to the other. Maybe the boy's got some questions he wants to ask mom. Maybe the daughter has some. Why not the dad talk to the son. Why not the mother talk to the daughter.
And then why not mom and dad talk to the son. And why not mom and dad talk to the other. There are young people. I promise you they're discussing it elsewhere. Or they're hearing it discussed. Or they're seeing it discussed.
And that way you bring mom and dad. Because a mother has things that she can contribute to a young man's mind. And thinking from a female perspective that he can't get from the dad. Because the dad is basically aggressive.
And the woman biologically is not made to be aggressive. In the true sense of the word as the man is. And she comes from one perspective. He comes from another perspective. And so consequently they need a balanced approach.
But you and I both know that the facts are. That most parents including Christian parents. Never discuss sexual difficulties. Sexual problems. Problems dealing with the interrelationships. Intercourse or any of those things.
With their young people. Other than the fact of saying well. And we have a couple that was in New Mexico. He was a doctor. Another profession. And she came and he came. And her parents had taught her in such a way.
That she was not responsive in anything to her. It was just a duty. It was just something she wanted to do. And get rid of it. And get it over with. And it was devastating marriage. And yet both of them were members of the church.
Faithful to the Lord. Visiting. Having fellowships. Doing it all. But their homes was totally destroyed. And their relationship was almost nothing. Because of something her parents had told her. And he'd had none.
He'd had none. And the tragedy is that this is true even in Christian homes. And then also faulty childhood impressions. And unwise handling by parents. Have profound effects. And sometimes later on cause tremendous sexual difficulties.
In the life of a young person. Because well. You see back in the old days there were horses. Back in the old days there were skirts and everything else. Back in the old days there were shoes and clothes.
In the old days there were bonnets. In the east there were veils. In the west there were all these things. You don't see that in the foreign world. But it isn't that way today. And it's a new world in which you and I live.
And if we don't deal with these young people about these problems. They're going to be devastating in their personal life. And in their own. Well we're going to just entrust them to the Lord. Yes. Certainly entrust them to the Lord.
But we must teach them. They are your responsibility. And the young people are their responsibility. Now it's your responsibility. They're the pastor's responsibility. They're not the church's responsibility.
They are the responsibility of the parent. Teach them things of life. That's why God gave them. God loaned them. To you. Or to an adult. And he loaned them to be trained. And to be taught. How to live for him.
And then soon they'll go off on their own way. And they'll live their own life. Also. We talked to someone about physical problems. Sexual problems. Physical problems. Sometimes there are physical causes that bring a significant difficulty into the sexual area.
And it causes maladjustments in life. And so we have to quickly try to recognize that and get them to a medical doctor. So that they can be helped and cared for. And then of course society itself. Secular society creates or aggravates the problems in the sexual area.
In more ways than society. The values of society. What they see on television. What they read in the magazines. And what they hear on the streets. What they discuss on the school bus. What they discuss when they're riding around.
What they discuss when they're at the beach. The information that is given to them. And all this has an effect on it. And because of society. Because of things there is a problem that is quite prevalent.
And that is the problem of homosexuality. Homosexuals can be dealt with and successfully be brought to Christ. They can successfully become useful Christians. They are rare. I'll tell you that it's been my experience that it's very rare that homosexuals even look for a change.
Most of them are not looking for change. They don't want to change. They don't desire change. And occasionally you'll find one that turns to Christ. And their lives are changed. And we can give you illustrations of that.
But let me give you seven causes of homosexuality. You say, you mean that? No, it's sin. It is sin. It's an abomination to God. But there are causes for it. One of them is a very dominant mother. And a home that has a mother that is dominant.
And there are so many homes, even Christian homes that I'm in. That I observe and that I see. The wife, for many reasons, has become the dominant personality. And because of her being dominant. And we'll cover that somewhat in a little bit.
In another section. Because of her dominance. Then that boy sees that dominating mother figure. And it causes him difficulty. And he or she, even the girl, can become. And coupled with that, of course, is a weak father.
A dominant mother. And, of course, if there's a dominant mother, there's a weak father. A weak father. And those can be causes of homosexuality. Because they become the role standard. They become the role idol.
They become that role standard for that boy or for that girl. It is unbelievable how many young people today are involved in homosexuality as aggressive homosexuals. Not passive. Not where they're just living with what you and I would call an aggressive homosexual person.
No. That they themselves are active, aggressive homosexuals. Young people. And by young people, I'm talking about anywhere from 14 to 19 to 20 years of age. That they are aggressive in this movement. And then also an overindulgent mother.
The doting mother, yes. Well, I just can't do too much for my son. I can't do too much for my daughter. And that is true. But an overindulgent mother permitting everything. Giving everything. Allowing everything.
And then, of course, the opposite would be a cruel father. A cruel father has turned many a young man to homosexuals. If we were to understand him, you would find that there is so much deception. So much lying.
So much physical abuse. So much stealing from one another. So much corruption in the homosexual movement. But on the other hand, you will find that if one of them gets into a difficulty, you will find they will rally to that person.
We can give you an instance. Young boys in homosexuality that was in the hospital. His parents can't hardly get to him because the homosexuals have just flooded the room with flowers. They keep picking more flowers into the room.
They are asking the florist to hold the patient there all the time. Seven, eight, nine of them at a time. Just there comforting. They rally to one another. And many of them are kind and gracious. Very sensitive to each other.
And it creates distrust. It creates this. They turn to that from a cruel father. They will turn to someone who cares and shows them kindness. And then of course, one of the part of the problem of the creation of homosexuality is the initial sexual experiences.
I can give you incident after incident after incident. Case history after case history after case history. Of a young girl or a young boy. Who on their wedding night or sometime within their honeymoon.
Or even into their marriage. Even middle-aged adults. Who became disenchanted or disturbed or hurt somehow through sexual experiences or bad experiences and turned to homosexuality. So many young people.
And so many adults. Because the initial experiences are bad experiences. And it does not fulfill them. And so therefore they turn to these areas. And also of course there is a glandular problem. It can cause homosexuality.
Their glands can get out of balance. Some glandular problem. And of course the medical doctors can detect that. And it can be solved. And then sometimes you will find that there is a genetic problem. By genetics I simply mean you can put it almost into the family line.
And I counseled with a young lady sometime ago. Whose mother and father, both of them professional people and both of them homosexuals. The mother was a lesbian. And the father was an aggressive male homosexual.
And so the girl married, loving, happily married, children. And yet she was working and she began to experience problems. And actually had an affair with a homosexual lady who was working there with her.
And so she came and she recognized wrong. She was a professing Christian. And I haven't got in my mind that she had had an experience with Christ. And yet she recognized the wrongness of it. But through her relationship with her husband, a good relationship.
And through the influence that she had seen with her mom and dad. Even when she stayed at home. And they would have, the mom would allow the husband to have visitors. And the husband would allow the mom to have visitors.
And then they would go off on weekends. She saw all that growing up as a young lady. And these things had tremendously saved her. You know she was a Christian? Yes, I believe she was saved. She hadn't wronged her mother in the Lord.
She hadn't been faithful to the Lord. But I believe she had an experience with Christ. And these were some of the causes that were facing her. And these are very positive for that particular factor. Now how would you deal with a homosexual person?
What would you do if one came to you? Or what would you do if a young lady came to you? In your community? Or a young boy? Or a young adult? And he came to you and said, Ms. So-and-so, or Mr. So-and-so, or Reverend So-and-so, or Dr. So-and-so.
I need to talk to you about a problem. And they just lay it out on you. What would you do? What could we say to them? I think the first thing is we need to know that they're a human being. We have to accept that they're less than human.
Now even though I would agree with you that it's an abomination to God. We abhor it. We detest it. It is wrong. It should not be in society. There's no such thing as an altruistic lifestyle. All those things we agree on.
But here's the problem. Let me ask you a question. Does God categorize sin? No. Nominations do. And people do. But if you read the category of sins, God puts disobedient parents right there with adulterers and murderers.
Six things does God hate? Proverbs says. A lying tongue and a boastful look. Proud look. Yeah, sure. Homosexuality as an abomination to God. Is it any worse than a lie? Is it any worse than pride? No, I think not.
As an abomination to God. It's a horrible thing. It is sin. But they can be helped if we look at them. And then we need to see them that they are not a homosexual by nature, but through life experiences.
Help them understand that through life experiences they have come to where they are before you ever try to lead them to say, That is sin. That's an abomination to God. I'm sure what Viticus says. And you read them some scripture that just explodes in front of them.
Help them understand why he is where he is before you ever try to take him where you want him to go. And then thirdly, we have to deal with it as a problem. Patience, understanding, and a heart that understands.
We don't have a particular incident in scripture where Jesus himself dealt with a homosexual. And we do know that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for being homosexual communities, but he didn't destroy Lot.
And Lot lived there. In fact, if you'll read Genesis 19, you will find that Lot was willing to turn his two daughters over to the entire community to do with as they would. He said, when those two men came into him, Lot said, I pray you do not so wickedly.
Behold, I have two daughters who have never known a man. Take them and do with them as you will. And the scripture says that all the men came from every quarter, old and young. And then it said all the people came from every quarter in Genesis 19.
All the men and the women. Those cities were totally populated by homosexuals and those who were caught up in the perversions of the sexual area. And he said, I have two daughters. He said, take them and do with them as you will.
But unto these men do nothing. For therefore came they to the shadow of my roof. He said, we've got a law of Judaism. That even if there's no law, anybody comes under your roof, they're entitled to your protection.
They're giving you life. Take my two daughters and do with them as you will. God didn't destroy him. Because Abraham did not pray. God spared him. Lot belonged to God in the wrong place. So God got him out.
These people can come to Christ. It is possible for them to get saved. And if they can get saved, they can get their life changed. So we must deal with it as another problem. And not look on it, even though in our hearts we know it is a horrible thing.
And then we also have to realize the value of a complete discussion. If you only give them what you think about it, and tell them they already know what you think about it. It's okay to clarify it for them, but they basically know what you think about it.
But you can share with them what you think about it, but also let them share with you. They'll tell you, well, I'm happy. I have a fulfilled life. You don't understand. How can you tell me that I'm not fulfilled?
How can you tell me that I'm not contented? How can you tell me that I'm not happy? How can you tell me that there's no purpose to what I'm doing? How can you tell me when I have a relationship that's just as stable as yours?
And many times they do. They think. But it's a false way of life, and we understand that. And it leads to degradation. It leads to that which is disastrous. But we need to have a complete discussion with them, and also we need to encourage them as we deal with them, and as they begin to come along, we need to encourage you to establish new and different friendships.
One of the biggest problems with drug users, one of the biggest problems with young people, is when they get saved, they still hang around the same people, going to the same places. The tragedy is many adults do.
When they become a Christian, they don't change the friends they hang around. They don't change the way. Many Christians, you know, the Bible says you get a new walk. Walk, worry. Walk differently. So many people sitting in the churches of the world who claim to be Christians, they still are going to the same places that they went before they got saved.
They're hanging around the same people that they used to hang around with before they became Christians. Where is the changed life? How much of the life changes? They go to the same amusements. They go to the same, in fact, very little has changed, except they've added some things, but they haven't given up.
What did we get saved from, and to whom did we get saved? It's inconceivable that we could demand of this person that he change friendships, that he change his lifestyle, and I don't change. I'll give you a quick example.
It's inconceivable to me personally as a Christian. You don't have to do as I say. Obviously you don't. I just share it with you, that a Christian can go and sit in a movie made by Hollywood for three hours, and yet, I promise you, most Christians can do that, sit in total darkness, and give Hollywood their mind, and sit there drinking everything Hollywood says, and then you can't get them to pray three hours in a week or read the Bible three hours a week.
And certainly most Christians, do you know that 95 out of every 100 church members in the world never win one person to Christ as long as they're a Christian? 95 out of every 100 church members in the world never win one person to Christ.
It's done by 5 of the people. 85 out of every 100 never give commissions of any kind. To me that's inconceivable, but it happens all the time. I find Christians, I know churches have dances in them.
Churches, they have dances in them. I have a little saying that I like to use, there never has been a praying knee and a dancing foot on the same leg. There never has been. And there never will be. Never will be.
No such thing. So what I'm saying is, here's a person come, we say, look, when we tell him that, if we speak to him out of our mind, it only changes his mind somewhat. But if we speak to him out of our heart and if we have that kind of a life, then he can accept that and go with it.
Also, we need to be alert to referral possibilities. It may get beyond us and we need to have someone that we can refer to this person. It may get into the medical area or it may get into an area where someone else has a little more expertise and we want to transfer them over to that person.
Not just to get rid of them, but so this person can continue it and help them. Be alert to referral possibilities. And then with a homosexual person, as with many other people, of course, you have to allow them a good period of time for rehabilitation.
Because you have to remember, they have a complete lifestyle that is so vastly different than the norm that we understand in the heterosexual relationship, that they're not going to change overnight. Their attitude can change, their life can change, yes.
But their lifestyle, they're not going to go back and just continue and just wean it off, no. They'll stop all of those activities immediately, but we have to allow them a long period of time before they're going to become the consistent Christian that you want them to be.
Same thing with anyone else in many areas. It takes a while to become a consistent Christian. And then not to belabor it, but we also have to make sure that this person has had a genuine experience of salvation as best as we can understand it.
A genuine experience of salvation. Now, in order to establish, if you're going to counsel with people, we want to do some things to help this person understand where they are and what they're doing. In order to do this in counseling with them, I have some charts here for you and I was going to put them out and I'm going to lay these out here later, but I want to go over them and I'll give them to you to get you, if you want to do any counseling with people, to get you a four-by-six card.
Just a four-by-six card. And in one corner of it, just put situation. And just right up top of it, situation. And keep that. Don't put anything in it and just keep these at your disposal. Keep them in your home.
Keep them in your car. Keep them wherever. And you need a list if you don't have it in your mind. I have these in my office and I have daily Bible reading. And I have a colon and I can put them a daily Bible reading there.
And when I counsel a person, I give them one of these cards. I give them one of them and then I keep one on them. I know what I've given them to do as a project and a homework. And also, to keep a list of suggested books and periodicals that you can give them.
Some of you said, can you give me a book on this? And you'd ask our brother, what kind of books are these? Can you give me a book on this subject? People want something they can refer back to. There are tremendous articles and there are great books, nothing heavy, but simple things that a person can read that will encourage them.
And some of them, people are not aware of. But you and I must be aware of what's in that piece of literature before we ever refer it to someone. And then give them Scripture to memorize. Every person that comes to you for any help whatsoever, if you're going to spend any time with them at all, you need to get from them a commitment that they will memorize Scripture and they'll memorize the ones you tell them.
So give them Scripture memorization. If you want to give them a week, fine. Sometimes it might take them two weeks. But give them Scripture to memorize. And then, there may be some specific prayer need that they have in their life.
And you want to put that down there. Something that's going to be prayed for for them. Something they need prayer for in their life. And then projects. Do it with projects. Give them guidelines and activities.
Ask them to do something in their life. Say, alright, I want you to go home tonight, sir. And I want you to sit down with your wife and I want you to ask for her forgiveness. Ask for her forgiveness for your abuse.
Tell her you've been dishonest. Tell her that you've done this, that. And just tell her. Just be open. And just tell her that you want a minute and a half of her time. And just say, I don't want you to interrupt me.
I just want to talk to you for a minute. And just tell her what is on your life. On your heart and in your life. And explain that to her. And just say, now will you forgive me? And if she just waits for a number, whatever.
But ask her, say, will you forgive me? It is important that I have your forgiveness. Will you forgive me? And then you get her forgiveness. And then, I might put down there, okay, do the same thing with your children or go to the neighbor.
Or I might sit down and say, okay, write out for me five goals that you have in your life, five priorities you have in your life, or five changes that you want to occur in your life this year. Five needs you think you have.
I may give him any number of those things. Then I might ask him to find one person that he believes that he can share his life with. And get him to share his life. It depends on the situation. We'll go over some of the situations in a moment.
But you know, it's real interesting. One man said to me, I can tell you three things that you will never become a backslidden Christian. If you will read the Bible 15 minutes a day, if you pray 15 minutes a day, and every day you try to tell someone about Christ, you will never go into a backslidden condition.
It's impossible to do so. That's not very much it, 15 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day, and try to tell someone about Christ. You make five phone calls in a minute and a half. If you don't talk about the African Violence Society, if you don't talk about you know, sweet potatoes, if you talk about things that are important, we can do it.
It's amazing what can be done very quickly on the phone. So we give them this card and demand, demand that they do it. If they don't do it, they don't do it. I say, all right, let's go over your projects.
And so I go over their projects. They say, well, I didn't have time to do that one. I say, why didn't you have time to do that one? Well, I did this or that. I say, well, no, I want you to do this. You have to do this.
And so I circle that one, and I make sure that that's still there. And maybe if they've done one, they may not have done any. I give them another shot. And I say, now, is there any reason why you can't?
Can you do this? Oh, yeah, I just don't have time. Now, if they tell me they don't have time, they have to do it. But there are some people who are incapable of doing something I ask them to do, although it's very simple.
But I don't know that until I put them to the test and get them to do it. So then if they tell me they can't do it, I try to find out why they can't do it. Can it be money problems? It may be that they don't understand it or it may be some other kind of difficulty.
But if they can do it, then I send them out to do it again. And I bring them back in the next session. If they've not done it that next time and they can't satisfy me that there is a reason why, then I break my relationship with them.
And I don't deal with them any longer. I just say, you have to go somewhere else. I can't work with you. You either have to do what I ask you to do or I can't work with you. I can't spend my time. There are just too many people asking for time.
And so we deal with it on that basis. The other sheet that I like to use, and this is for my own use, is that I just took a sheet of paper and just a simple paper and 8 1⁄2 by 11 and I just formed it off.
I found 23 basic problems that are prevalent in humanity. I mean, there's 23 basic problems. You can start alphabetically, if you want, addiction, drug addiction, alcoholism, adultery. And on one side, I just went down all the age groups.
Obviously, a child is going to be involved in some of them. But I put child, then I put a teenage boy, teen boy, teen girl, man, woman, elderly man, elderly man, elderly woman. And then I put other special categories, although there are no other people, but there might be some special category out of one of those that I would use.
And then I just put a column down underneath addiction. And I have typed in there scripture that would apply for a child who was, and I can name you 7 and 8 year old children that are drug addicts. It's no problem.
You know, it's in the elementary schools of the world today. It's dropping all the time. Housewives are addicted to drugs. So I write a scripture there for each one of them in that problem. Now again, if they're not involved in the problem, I don't.
And I do that for every one of these particular problems so that I can have that scripture reference available to me when they come in. Some of them I already know, but I cannot depend upon the fact of committing these things in memory all the time.
Especially when we deal with people in different walks of life and you're getting all these things and all the mail this year out of our office just, we just bought a ministry office that we're pretty close right now to almost, I'd imagine, about a one and three quarter million pieces of mail that have gone out, if you count individual pieces.
They're going out. So there's no way in the world you're going to remember it. And I'd like to tell you that I have the Bible memorized, but I don't. So I put it down and I have it all typed out and I use these.
And then I just continue those situations out. So when a person comes to me, I have this on my desk, I can take this out and sit it there and as they talk to me, I can look at this as I write down what they're saying, I take my notes and so forth, I can look at the scripture and I have scripture there.
And as I look at that scripture verse, immediately it comes to my mind, a thought comes to my mind, a principle comes to my mind and I've got a reinforcement for dealing with that particular individual.
I'll have some copies up here for you and you can take these and you can just look them over and perhaps you can use them and perhaps they'll be of some help to you. Tomorrow, what I would like to do is to move into an area, I'd like to cover briefly with you some of the things that involve some of the pressures.
I have a personal evaluation for husbands, but I thought well we might not better go into that because I know that the ladies were excited for you men came in and it would have been unanimous if we put it to a vote.
You know the two complaints that are usually lodged against husbands, how about marital counseling, the two complaints that are usually lodged mostly, one is that the men cannot control their temper number one, and secondly their pride, they never admit they're wrong.
Those are usually the two complaints that come more from the wife and from the children. The dad never says he's wrong and they lose their temper. And I find that a child or a young person or a wife's attitude to husband usually will reflect their attitude towards God.
It usually will. And so I thought we'd share tomorrow with you to make your life more delightful. Maybe we'll get into some of the tips of a happier sex life. And you don't have to go to Madame Lassonde's School of Love in Marseilles, France to understand that you can have a delightful relationship one with another.
There are many things that are propagated in life today. Then I would like to share with you, before we move into the other areas, six pressures in married life. Six tremendous pressures in married life.
And it would not matter if we could sit down and evaluate young people, if we could sit down and evaluate couples and help them understand these six pressures. It could alleviate so very much. And some of them we've not touched on any of these since we've been talking.
Just briefly we commented on a couple of them. And so I propose to do that. And then I would like to move into an area perhaps dealing with thoughts. You know, thoughts. Satan always works on a person first in the realm of thoughts.
Always a thought. Your body never does anything, your mind doesn't tell it to be basically. Unnormal circumstances. My arm didn't move, my mind didn't tell it to move. I can get a collar shot, it's a muscular reaction.
But basically, you don't go anywhere that your mind doesn't tell you to go. And it's true with everyone under normal circumstances. And so I'd like to deal with you and share with you and give you and encourage you in some areas of how to deal with thoughts.
How to deal with thoughts and to keep pure thoughts as opposed to impure thoughts and keep our minds concentrating on those areas that God wants us to concentrate on. And then I want us to move in to the area, move toward at least the area of spiritual warfare because it will take us a little while to get some of the information in.
Alright, we have just a couple of minutes and then we'll take our time off and get ready for Brother Paul this evening. But would you have a question right now concerning something that I've said today or something I didn't say?
No, her parents were not believers. Both of them were professional people. They really in the Meckle field. Well, it's extremely possible for a person to be saved and get into a situation where they can go off into something.
No person is immune to these even though they're Christian. If a person gets out from under the protection of the Lord and gets away from walking with God they're susceptible to anything. Because we're saved does not make us immune to the possibility of turning away from the things of the Lord.
I know people personally that and you do too who've got involved in many things who I'm really convinced were saved people because they get out of control as Dr. Paul says to us as the scripture tells us.
Oh, yes. If you're asking and if you're saying that a person who is in this lifestyle who becomes saved, obviously if they're saved they're going to come out of it. That's just obvious. But it's possible for a person who is a Christian to drift and fall back.
I don't believe they can stay there. They'll either come out or God will take their life. One of the two. He'll take them on home and get them out of the picture. But we've dealt with many people that I'm as convinced as I am who I am as best I can be that they had a born again experience in their life.
But they were in severe difficulties in their life for many reasons. For many reasons. And some are reclaimed and some aren't. The teaching is that a Christian can't commit suicide. I can give you instance after instance of people that I'm convinced knew the Lord but took their life.
Under pressures and under things of this nature it's possible. Pardon me? Where are you reading from? Are there two things to get a person saved or one? Revelation 21 8 says all liars shall have their part in the lake of fire.
I mean are you going? There is forgiveness in Christ. There is forgiveness in Christ. How many of my sins were atoned for when Christ died 2 ,000 years ago? All of them. Past, present, future. No, I don't have difficulty.
I fully understand both terms. I think the problem comes is whenever we believe because a person is saved that that person cannot get into a backstabbing condition as to where they can. And I since the fire I'm convinced saved people.
If I understand Acts chapter 4 I believe the new Lord and God killed them both. But they told a lie and they lied to God. Peter denied the Lord. Openly denied him. What I'm saying to you is that the human mind is a very complex thing.
And if a person gets out of the word of God, if a person is out of prayer, that person has moved out from under the protection of the Lord. They are saved but God only blesses obedient children. He does not bless a person in disobedience.
He blesses an obedient child of God and that person can continue into a backslidden state to such a point as they will lose the sense of God's presence in their life and that person is open to be used by the enemy to do a number of things.
And Satan has set out. For example, in 2 Corinthians Paul says, lest Satan get an advantage of you, we are not ignorant of his devices. How many Christians know what the devices of Satan are? We say he's a liar, he's a murderer, those are characteristics, those are not devices.
What are his devices? If we don't know his devices, then Paul plainly says that he can get an advantage of us. And yet I would suggest that most Christians do not know his devices. They just know his basic characteristics.
And to me, I understand it. And you're not obligated to believe as I, but it's been my experience that it's extremely dangerous to believe because a person says that they can't commit what we call gross sin.
Sin is not categorized as far as God is concerned. Sin is sin. A lie is sin. Pride is sin. By the materials, that person can order tapes as often as they like. They may order two on Monday, they may order two Friday, they may order two the next Monday.
They can order the others at their own choosing, whichever one. Now, I've said the four things that I always ask people to do. And we have a lot of people in Taiwan, we have people in South Africa, we have them in Costa Rica, we have many of them in Toronto, Niagara Falls, Hamilton, across Canada who are involved in this.
We ask that you always do four things if you take this material. If you fill this out, then obviously you are telling me by filling this out that you will study that material very carefully. Now, what that means is you don't just listen to it.
That means if it quotes a scripter, or if I recite a scripter, you stop that tape recorder, wherever you are, can you read that scripter and see if it says that to you. And if that scripter doesn't say that to you, you please write me a letter and say I don't see that.
Challenge me with it and we'll discuss it because I don't want to teach you something that I don't believe in. And so you study it very carefully. Secondly, you let someone else study with you if possible.
Now, this is not a library, it is your material. It becomes yours. You never return it. Thirdly, we ask that you would pray for us whenever you think about us. Fourthly, it's financial. Fourthly, I simply will assume that when you fill this out and give it to me that what you're saying is if God ever lays on my heart that we should send you some financial help, we'll do it.
We'll send it the way he says and ever how much he says and that's all you have to say. And I assume that so when you give that to me that you're just open to God's leadership in your life. It is not charged.
We don't charge anything for it. It is by faith. It isn't free. It's by faith. And we just trust. You won't ever get a bill from me. You'll never get a letter saying if you don't send me $25 we're going out of business.
We don't do that. They are yours for the taking. And so you may have those. The other one, one of the members talking to me about it just briefly. It is a home bible course. I made a mistake by putting four year bible course because that frightens people.
It is exactly the same bible course that's taught in your average bible college. You can do it quicker than four years obviously. These semesters are broken down by books of the bible. The first six books of the bible is one semester.
We send you the questions written out. You answer them written out. You write the questions. You have instructions. You send them back to me and I grade each question personally. I will go over everyone personally and I will make comments.
I will write in their underlined circle. Tell you if you're wrong. Tell you you need more light on the scripture. Tell you to go pray. I'll go read another scripture and then we will send those back to you graded.
With that will be the next lesson. We'll take you through every book of the bible. You don't have to worry about dates. We don't have to worry about which prophet preached which king ruled. I will send you those.
What I want you to do is know the book of the bible. Know what's in that book. We'll take you through every book of the bible. You can't get credit for it but you will have the value of having that knowledge with you.
You can probably do this. I have some people who just enrolled and they're already in Leviticus. There will usually be 10 to 15 questions, sometimes 20 that are involved in them. Those forms are out there.
You can take them or leave them. I'll not be angry with you one way or the other. We'll just get along fine. Take a deep breath, please, and just relax. No offering during the afternoon session. I'm going to give you a test this afternoon.
It's in Hebrew. If you pass it, you'll do alright. If you fail it, you have to give me $5. I want to share several things with you in moving towards our session tomorrow evening, which I think is very critical for us.
I want to share a couple of thoughts back on something that we looked at earlier concerning dealing with people. When I say counseling, I'm talking from the professional sense, but I'm also talking from you as a sister or brother in Christ.
When you deal with someone, you are actually counseling with that person. These things are applicable in that area. I want to share a thought or two of some things that are helpful in dealing with an individual, just some general things of how to detect what they're trying to say to you and me, and then also how to keep from becoming emotionally involved with these people.
Somebody you love and somebody you care about, it's very difficult to sit back and look at them very objectively because it's our tendency to get involved with them. Then I want to look back with the young people a little bit, so many questions have been coming concerning this, about some possibilities in dating, how to handle some of the dating situation, how to handle some of the going steady situation, how to handle some of the discipline, and then I want to give you a project that you can do with a daughter, that a father can do with a daughter, give you a project a father can do with a son, just how to disciple that child, how to get that person, that young boy or that young girl where they will want to do or they can do what God wants them to do in their life, and you can raise a godly child in this way.
Now obviously it's nice if you start out when they're quite early, but some don't have that opportunity. So let me just give you sort of a guideline of what to do when you first start talking to a person about a problem.
You can call this an introductory examination, or you can just talk about initial contact, or you can just say the first time they come to me. You and I have to take a difficulty that a person has, and we have to examine not only the problem, but we have to also find out what the accompanying motive is, what the problem is, and what their motive is.
A lot of people will ask you questions and they don't really want an answer. What they want is an answer they are looking for, one which will justify their position or allow them to continue to do what they are doing.
All they want you to do, they just want you to reinforce what they're doing. They don't really want an answer. I have a little thing that I've picked up that I like to do with people if they cause me a little mental difficulty and I sense something going haywire in my conversation, I'll say, they'll come up and I do this a lot with people in meetings, they'll say, I have a question for you, and they'll ask me a question.
I'll say, now, let me ask you a question, please. If I give you the answer to that question, will you do it? And they'll say, well, I'm not sure. I'll say, no use in me giving you an answer. Well, maybe I will, maybe I won't.
Well, then why do you ask me for? No, it's a waste of my time, a waste of your time. Why should I spend time discussing this, if you're not going to do it anyway? I'll tell you the answer to it. I'll tell you what I think the answer is, if you'll promise me you'll do it.
And they'll say, well, no, there's no use in discussion. Why worry about it? Just forget it. It's not going to be a problem to me. I'm not going to feed it, so you're going off. And so, we have to examine their motive of why they're coming to us.
But a woman came and she had a tremendously pressing problem with her. And as we began to talk, she expressed to me the thought, she said, I just believe that as a wife, I am a complete failure. And I thought, well, that sounds kind of common to me, I can handle that all right.
And she began to talk and I listened to her what I felt like was quite carefully and I began to encourage her to speak up and just go ahead and share. And every once in a while, you have to catch yourself playing the role of the counselor, you go, yes, quite interesting, yes.
But if you don't get them to talk, if you just grunt long, soon they don't respond to grunts. They will the first couple, but after that you've got to bring it out of them. So I began to get her to talk and I began to I just sensed that there were some deep roots that she wasn't talking about to me.
You see, people talk about symptoms, they don't talk about the roots. You've got to go beyond the symptoms. Most of us deal with symptoms. Most of us deal with symptoms. You know, if you have a cold and you blow your nostril, you don't deal with a symptom.
That's not the root, that's not what's causing it. You know, tell the kid, go and get you a handkerchief and solve that problem. It's not going to solve that problem, it's going to deal with a symptom.
They're not going to sneeze as much, but there's something causing that cold. So you have to weigh the questions, does this person or do they really feel this way? I know she's telling me this, but does she really feel that way?
Is she wanting me to reassure her that she's not a failure? Now, that'd be the easiest way to go, oh, why, no, you're not a failure. You're a wonderful wife. How do you know? You don't even know me. Oh, why, you're a wonderful mother.
You don't know my kids. Well, I'm sure that you just know. What is she wanting from me? Is she wanting reassurance or does she want sympathy? Oh, yeah, that's an easy one. Why, bless your heart. Why, I understand what you're saying.
Oh, I know what you're going through. She said, how do you know? You're not a woman. Well, what I mean is, and then I'd sit there and she's counseling me. I've got to sit around and explain to her what I'm doing.
Why I say that? No, is she looking for praise? Maybe she wants me to praise her and that'll snap her out of her condition. So as the session began to continue along, she began to speak to me of what she felt like a failure was.
She began to clarify it somewhat. And she had been a disappointment, she said to her husband and her children. She just knew that she had. And so I began to try to find a clue as to what brought about these circumstances.
What causes her to think like she's thinking? I know what she's saying, but what is causing her? And so I said, well, let me ask you a question. Have you always felt this way? When did this start? What caused you to start?
I mean, has this always been in your marriage? Or does your husband criticize you all the time? Do your children criticize you? And if you don't think children criticize their parents, all you got to do is listen.
Sometimes it's in humor, but it's actually a criticism. Actually a criticism. And I said, is this, do you have resentment against your husband? And more questions she started asking me. And the real motives did not emerge.
And I thought, well, what in the world am I going to do with this lady? So she came back again. And I scheduled it in, and then it began to come out. She began to blame herself. And she said, well, I just argued too much with my husband.
I said, well, that's interesting. Why? And she complained, she said to me, I am too restricted in my marriage. Said I don't have any freedom. He just restricts me. Everywhere I go, I got to check out with him.
Every time I come in, I got to check in with him. I have to check, I have restrictions in my marriage. And I thought, well, that doesn't sound, it just didn't fit the picture. And she said, you know what I wish?
I wish I had remained single and kept my career. I should never have gotten married in the first place. Well, I could have accepted that. But things went on, and then she began to shift. She says, well, you know, I've been sitting here.
I said, well, you know, do you really think that you're the blame? Well, I'm not totally the blame. Well, he's probably as much the blame as I am. So I got her to give him half the blame. Then before long, he had three-fourths of the blame.
And before long, he was the guilty culprit. Before long, she said, he's the cause of me being like I am. I was happy, I was single, I had a career. I didn't need him. He duped me, he talked me into this.
I shouldn't have gotten married in the first place. And exasperation is everywhere. Well, the whole thing came down to this. She said, you know what? He is just like my father. There it was. The deep root was she resented her father.
And her husband was her father figure. And she was seeing in her husband the same thing she saw in her dad. And she resented her husband because she resented her dad. And dear people, you will find that most of the problems that people face, you can follow it right through their family line.
You can follow it from grandfather to father to son. It just walks through the family just like that. And it just moves through. So what I'm saying is the true motivation that brought her to the realization of having a problem and getting there was just now beginning to emerge in that situation.
The deep resentment, her self-criticism was only a cloak. It was only something that hid the fact and she could not say, I don't like my dad. But once she could say that and we dealt about why, then we got her to go to the point eventually to get on the telephone and call her dad and say, Dad, I've loved you but I want you to know that I resent you and I want you to forgive me for resenting you.
And here's why I resented you. Will you forgive me for this? And she didn't ask him to say anything except I will forgive you. And you know there was a cleansing effect that came into her heart. She went to her husband and asked for his forgiveness.
Even though she really hadn't done anything. So what I'm saying is you and I have to examine the problem but you have to get to the motive of that problem. Why? Because it's usually a symptom and it helps us understand that.
Now, if you have a similar background, you have an advantage sometime. You're in a unique position and people come to you and you say, you know, I've experienced that same thing. I mean, I know what you're talking about.
I can identify with that and you're in a tremendous position and even though you may have some minor problems in your life, they won't be a hindrance to you because you can understand and you can identify with a counselee and if you've experienced some of the same things they have, it can be a tremendous advantage.
Experience does help us in a lot of ways. And after going through similar circumstances, you have a tremendous opportunity to see exactly what they're facing but it can be a great disadvantage. Because we have had similar experiences does not always prove to be an advantage.
It can be a disadvantage. It can be a hindrance if you try to use the same prescription with every person. The same thing that worked in your life as a prescription may be poison to them. No doctor will tell you to go into a medicine cabinet and take anybody else's medicine.
The way God worked with you and me, you see, may not be the way God will work with them. The same prescription does not work for every person. The same scriptures do and God is looking for a result but God deals with a person in their own personality, in their own environment, under their own circumstances.
And think, well, now I'm gonna tell you what my dad did with me, that may be fine. Here's what I do with my child, that's fine but your child has a different personality than their child. Now there are generalities that will function with all but you can't deal with every child.
You can't even do that in your home. You can't deal with four children and deal with each one of those children the same because they don't have the same capabilities, they don't have the same abilities, they don't have the same IQ, they don't have the same talent, they don't have anything the same.
And yet we try to treat them all exactly like and wonder why they get frustrated. One can wash dishes and the other will destroy your kitchen. One could, well, you could turn loose one with a bucket of paint and they'd come out with a work of art.
Paint you a mural on the wall, beautiful. You turn that over, you don't even want that kid near the wall. In fact, you have to chain them sometimes and keep crayons away, they'd go crazy. No, they are different.
So it can be a disadvantage if we are not very careful. And then one of the great dangers of talking to people is that person will become dependent upon you. They will become dependent upon you and they will call you every time a problem comes up.
And it'll be a simple thing. They'll call you day and night. Now ministers get themselves into a lot of problems. Have you ever heard this said by a minister? You call me day or night. I am here to minister to you and you just call me day or night.
And then within three months, he will gripe and complain. I can't have any time for my family. Every time I eat, the phone rings. Every time I sit down to rest a little, I'm gonna read the paper, the phone rings.
I can't get any sleep. They call me all times of the day or night. I say, well, let me ask you a question. Why do they call you? Have you ever told them they could? Well, I told them, you know, call me in case of an emergency.
Well, you know what emergency is in the church? An emergency simply is whenever I don't have time, tell me. That's an emergency. Call the pastor up at 11 o 'clock at night. Pastor, somebody told me we're having a fellowship next week.
I didn't see it in the bulletin. Well, it's in the bulletin. Do you have one? Well, I didn't see, yeah, I have one. I didn't read it. I have my Bible somewhere. I don't know where it is. But I just thought I'd call you and you'd tell me.
I said, why not, sir? Tell your people when you become pastor of that church. I have a family just like you have one. I have children just like you do. I have to spend time with my wife just like you have to spend time with your wife.
I have to teach my children just like you do. Now, I'm available to you all day long. My phone is available. You call me. I'm available for an emergency, but now here's what an emergency is. And I named to them what an emergency is.
An emergency is not whenever your lawnmower doesn't work. It's not whenever you run out of gas in your lawnmower. An emergency is when you can't figure out something about the Sunday school lesson. Those are not emergencies, no.
You say, well, we're assigned deacons to them, and then the poor deacon comes along. Here he is, he gets them all night long. The pastor said, boy, he got them now. I'm rid of that stuff. Let him call the deacon.
So here comes the deacon. Now, deacon's got to tell them what an emergency is. He's got to go on down. So what we do is we create all these problems and turn around trying to beat them off of us. But I think that we need to understand that people are just naturally inclined to become dependent upon someone they love or respect or look to for leadership.
It's just a human tendency. And so we have to be careful that one of the great responsibilities of someone counseling with a person is to help them put away their crutches and stand on their own two feet.
We have to help them to walk alone. It is of no value if you carry them all through life. We've got to help them to become disciplined. And the counseling process is nothing more than to help a person become a responsible, mature person in Jesus Christ.
That's what we're trying to do with this individual. Now, a dependent person cannot do two things. Well, many, but a dependent person cannot have discipline in their life and they cannot regulate their life.
If they are dependent upon you or me or anyone else, they'll not develop discipline and they will not be able to regulate their life. They will begin to call you. I've had them ask me first. I mean, simple, I said, well, you know how to do that.
You don't have to call me and tell me you need to go to the grocery store and get groceries. If you're hungry, go get them. Well, should I do this? You don't have to tell me that. You don't tell me, send your kids to school?
Sure, send your kids to school, it's okay. You want to go to work today? Fine, go to work. You want to work overtime? Fine, go to work. I can't answer all those questions for them, but they'll ask you until you cut that umbilical cord and let them walk alone.
And they will not gain their own insights if they become too dependent upon you. Now, you know what the tendency is amongst Christians? We like to clone people. Now, we tell them, and I've said this earlier, I want you to be like Christ, don't be like me, but wouldn't we really like for him to be like us?
I mean, we really would. It wouldn't be, I mean, it could be worse things happen. Other than being like me, they could be like you. I mean, you know, it could be worse. We really don't want them to be like us, but we really do.
Why? We like for them to go off and say, do you know, I'm just like Brother so-and-so because he is the man that's influenced my life more than anyone else. I'm just like he is. Well, that pumps the ego, but what that does, that makes that person so dependent upon us.
The tragedy is they go out and do something wrong, somebody comes and says, yeah, you know what you taught this one to do, don't you? I'll tell you what you taught him to do, and then you get that too.
So it's positive and negative on both of these. We want them to develop their own insight procedure where they can learn what they need to learn and get it on their own. And we must assume the role, basically, of being a catalytic agent.
We want to just be a catalyst. We want to be a person, an instrument, a tool that God can use to spring them forward or to push them into or to guide them through somehow or other to get them on the rail of life with the Lord so that they can sail on themselves and they can take care of anything in front of them.
You can always be a resource. I always tell them once they get off, I say, look, you can get off the train anytime you want. We're gonna start working through your difficulties, but now you will determine when it's time for you to get off the train, but I'm gonna encourage you every once in a while.
Sometimes you have to spiritually put your foot in their back and push them off the caboose because they don't want to get off. They don't want to get off. And you just have to say, it's time. Well, I can't make it.
I can't do it. He says, if you need me, if you need me, I'll be here. I'll be here. I'm gonna pray for you, and I'm always here if you ever need me. But I have confidence in you. I wouldn't tell you to go and not come back again if I didn't really believe you could do it.
I have confidence in you that you can do it, and you just keep telling them that they can do it, and it's amazing. They'll go out and do it. They'll go out and do it, but as long as you do it for them, why should they?
So we want to cut off this dependence that they have, and we want to encourage and we want to regulate this therapeutic process. We want to do that, but we don't want to cause it, and we don't want to too strongly direct it.
Let them guide themselves through it, and you just be the resource for them, and what it will do, it is very subtle, and it's very unconscious that this dependence occurs, but we must not ever make their decisions for them.
Show them the solution, but let them make their own decisions, because if you make it for them, then they have not gained that insight on their own, and there is no discipline in their mentality concerning that particular problem.
So a thought is that the counselee should develop his own insights and his own ideas, because if you don't, there is no maturation. The maturity will not occur during that counseling process. The therapeutic process is to bring a person from a given point, bring them into spiritual maturity, or to put them into the avenue where they can gain spiritual maturity, but maturity will not develop, and it will not come if you and I do not help this person develop their own insights, formulate their own ideas, and translate those into positive action in their life.
Now, we must not expect them to do everything correctly, but on the other hand, we must not allow them to expect us to solve their problems for them. We are not problem solvers. We are there to assist them in finding the solution for their life.
The spirit of the living God has the solution to their life, and they have to learn that they can stand on their own, and they also have to learn they can walk alone. Oh, sure, we can have fellowship, but they can walk and face life alone.
So what we usually do is I make very sure in my own life when I'm talking to someone, at least I try to, I try to make very, very sure that I examine any question they ask me. I mean, I'm turning it over in my mind because they will give you some direct questions, and sometimes they'll be very blunt with you, and what they're trying to do is they just try to check you out.
Now, I furnish them an answer for any question they give me. I don't say, well, I don't want to answer that one right now. That's too delicate. I don't think we need, no. They've asked for a reason, and I would, now, they're usually, sometimes they'll be asking for a reaction from you.
They watch you, and they'll say something to you. They'll just drop it on you. Kids will do it. Teenagers will do it, and they're trying to find out what your reaction is, but you know, you and I are so concerned sometimes, I believe, about what people think about us and what are people going to say about us that we don't stop to think about what this person is really saying to me.
Now, what they're doing usually is trying to pry out of you a general attitude before they ever start with you. They'll come in, and they're just trying to find out where you are mentally. Which direction are you going to take me in?
All right, I've come to you, and I've asked you about a problem. Now, which way are we going to go? And so, sometimes, they'll just drop a little bomb on you. They begin to probe you, and sometimes, they're trying to find out if they can trust you.
And it's amazing what you can find out in two or three minutes with a person in speaking with them. You can tell, you can tell, I'm not so sure I can trust this fellow. I'm not so sure I can trust him.
I have people come all the time. Now, I'm sure there's some condomigo somewhere else, but they don't tell me this, but I've had them come say, well, how come you don't go to your pastor? Well, I just don't feel comfortable.
They'll give you some of the rigmarole. I said, no, tell me. Now, have you gone to him, talked to him? No. Well, I think maybe you should go to him. I mean, he's your pastor. Why don't you go to him? And you hear, it's been done for years.
Sometimes, those in the ministry are some of the most untrustworthy people that you can go to. They're just not going to do it. Why? He'll preach a sermon on it. He won't use their name. He'll say John Doe somewhere, but everybody in town knows who it is.
And he can't even get a sermon on it, you know? Or he'll go home, and he'll tell his wife, and he just needs her counsel, but he doesn't know the kid's sitting there in the other room listening. So the kid gets on the phone and says, you know what my dad said today?
Man, let me tell you this. And before long, that kid finds out, and who gets it? Some kid comes and says, Mom, do you know what so-and-so told me that somebody said, so-and-so said? And the pastor's son says, what?
And he relates the story, and the mother's horrified because it's her. She's the one that's been down there. And if you think that won't ring the pastor's phone, I mean, that'll get him busy in a hurry, and tracing that thing down, it's like Hydra, the many-headed serpent.
You can't ever trace it down. And it just continues to go that way. Kids will come in, you'll talk to them, and you'll say, well, now, you know the scripture says, honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may be well with thee, and that your days on earth may be long.
You see, God will cut your life short. The days of an unrighteous man, it says an unrighteous man does not live out half his days, that it may be well with you. And I say, many young people die quickly.
They die early because they're in rebellion against their parents. They have physical, emotional problems because they're in rebellion. That it may be well with you, and that your days on earth may be long.
You say, why should I obey my parents? How come? Well, the Bible says, well, I understand what the Bible says, but I'm talking about, why should I obey mine? I have Christian kids, friends of mine, they don't obey theirs.
You say, well, I'll tell you what, if you don't, God'll zap you. That'll be good for you. God says, man, God'll get you. You won't develop. Now, I say, well, why shouldn't you? Are there any advantages for you?
Now, I know that may be somewhat, and I wanna be careful about getting into a psychological approach, basically, because we're dealing with spiritual matters. But you gotta get that kid's attention. And you gotta deal with him where he is.
And so I just say, well, not only does, what does the scripture teach? I just say, what does the Bible tell us? Are there any advantages for you? Obeying your parents. The reward system. What does God tell you and me?
You obey me, and you do, or else, no. Lay up treasures. God always rewards good, and he always deals with that which is bad. That's the way God does. He not only blesses us, we say, well, I serve the Lord because I love him.
Do we really? Do we really? Maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's how come we don't get much done. Maybe that's how come we're winning fewer people to the Lord every year. That's why there are more lost people on the planet Earth today than ever any time in history.
Because we serve the Lord because we say, well, I serve him because I love him. Well, do we? That's why communism has won more people in two generations than Christianity has in 2 ,000 years. I'm not saying we don't love him, but you see, we do serve the Lord out of gratitude and because of love, but we also serve him, because he's gonna reward us for our faith.
Now, I want them all, don't you? I want every reward I can get. Let's face it. Get them all. I said, well, I don't want any. You don't want any? Can I have yours? Would you pray and say, Lord, give him mine and he'll give me that one?
He'll give you mine? I want them all. I want them all. So I talk to them about advantages. What are they? We'll talk about this in a few minutes, about memorizing scripture. One of the quickest way in the world to get kids to memorize scripture is reward them for it.
Give them rewards for doing it. We do it in church. We give them certificates if they go through a course. We give them a little pen if they come to Sunday school long enough. We give all kinds of rewards in church.
But coming home, memorize that verse of scripture. Boy, you don't go out for seven years. You do that. Dad, I can't swim with this sack of this rock in here. You know, you're taking him on down the road.
Let him go down and change to the drain in the swimming pool. Let him play down there for a while and see what happens. We can reward them. Another is, I'm gonna come and say, well, how come I shouldn't have premarital sex?
All my friends do. It doesn't hurt them. Well, I can name you all kinds of couples that got married and they all did during school. Or why shouldn't I? I said, well, do you think everybody ought to do it?
Well, I mean, you have a little sister. Do you think she ought to be? Well, no, I don't think she ought to be. Well, I mean, do you think, well, why do you think this? Let me ask you a question. Are there any negative results if you do that?
What are the negatives in that? Let's, what could happen? Let's write down some things that happen. They don't think about negatives. They only think about that which they think are positives. So we gotta bring them back.
You know, positive has no value unless there's a negative. Heaven means nothing unless there's a hell. One thing helps me appreciate that I'm gonna be with the Lord is I know I couldn't go somewhere else.
And so it makes me more appreciate that. Another thing is, people say, what's wrong with divorce? Boy, if you hear that everywhere. We used to get one out of every three marriages, you know, ended in divorce.
Now you can't get one out of three to last. And on and on it goes. What's wrong with it? I said, well, what are the advantages of divorce? Let's write them down. What do you see, advantages? And it's amazing what some of them write down.
I said, well, what are the negatives? What are the temporary results of a divorce? I had one young man, he said, I think, he said there are 23, 23 results of divorce. I said, well, that's fine. There may be 24, I don't know.
We'll take 23. I said, what are the temporary results? What are the long-range effects of divorce? Get them thinking of what they are actually saying because most people are just talking off the top of their head and they've got something worked out in their mind, you know?
And one good one that comes out occasionally is having a guy say, well, I want to tell you something. Now, what I've told you about my wife. Wouldn't you leave her if yours were like mine? Wouldn't you leave yours if yours did that?
Well, that's important. And I understand what you're saying. Could we just talk about that for a moment? Let's talk about your relationship to your wife. And go on and get on. Before long, you know, he's discussing with you.
So you have to deal with them and find out what they're actually saying and why are they saying what they're saying? What is their motive? Now, it's very difficult to not get involved with people. It is very difficult for your heart, lungs to help people.
A Christian's heart, God's put in the life of every Christian. The possibility and the capability of being sensitive, being loving, being tender. And when we handle another life, we want to be very careful.
And in doing that, it's very easy to become emotionally involved with that person to the point that I cannot be objective with them. And you have to deal with children this way. Sure, you're already emotionally involved.
But when you deal with them in certain issues, you have to kind of stand back and you have to really look at that thing. If you don't, you're going to correct them in anger. You'll correct them with irritation.
Or you'll say something you wish you had never said. Oh, I take that back. You can't take it back no more than you take a bullet back that's been fired from a gun. A spoken word, once it is spoken, stays spoken.
It's gone. I wish I hadn't said that. I wish I hadn't. Well, sometimes they can forgive, but you know, humans don't forget. We don't forget. And somewhere down the line, in the heat of an argument, yeah, I'll tell you what, and it springs out again.
It springs out again. So let me give you four steps that kind of helped me in not becoming too deeply involved. Now, you're going to have to get involved, and this will be on our test. Focus your attention on the counseling process.
Keep your attention on the process, not necessarily the person. Now, that can only be done if you concentrate on that therapeutic process. While they are talking to you, ask yourself questions quietly within your own mind.
Why is he saying this to me? Is he accepting responsibility for himself concerning this problem? Is he trying to put this responsibility on someone else? Ask yourself questions related to what they're saying to you and your attention will be on the process, not the person, and it keeps you from becoming involved with that person to the point that you can't look at what they're really saying.
So focus the attention on the counseling process. And then secondly, sometimes we feel like that this problem is new to this individual, but we need to recognize and realize that a person's unfortunate situation is not unfamiliar to them.
They are familiar with what's going on. I mean, you know, in all probability, that problem has developed over a period of time. It's taken it a while, it's just now showing up, but that problem's been there for a while.
No one walks into the office and says, I've got a problem and it just started five minutes ago. No one does. That problem will go back and it'll have roots and tentacles on it that go way, it may go any number of directions.
And so we need to know that that person has gradually become what they are. They have gradually become what they are. They have probably built up a condition through the years so that that condition does not shock them.
They've probably been dealing with it for quite a while. They may not have been dealing with it well, but they've been confronting it for a little while by the time they get to you and me as Christian people.
So we realize that their situation is not unfamiliar to them. And then thirdly, we realize that objectivity is seldom achieved through too close of an identification. If you say, I identify with you on that, yes, but if we too closely identify with them, then we're not going to achieve objectivity.
We're going to make a decision based upon our emotional attitude towards that person or an emotional intellectualism rather than a rational or thinking intellectualism. We want to base a decision on God's word and God's biblical principles, but we want to have thought that decision out.
We don't want to make a decision based upon what we feel. Well, I feel like you ought to do this. Oh, no, no, no. They need something more substantial than that because my feelings can fool me. Our feelings can fool me.
We don't want to be too subjective. And only a person who remains a healthy distance from an individual when they're talking with them, only that individual can discern in a true perspective, objectively, what the problem really is.
We have to keep a healthy distance from them. Now, you can be friendly with a person and you can respond to a person and still keep a healthy distance from them and that problem. You don't have to, you know, and one thing, of course, we always say and I don't know that I'll say it anywhere else in here, so I'll just put it here.
Number one is when you're counseling with someone, you never touch them. Do not put your hands on them, male or female. You just don't. You just keep that distance from them. Keep that distance from them.
Don't put your hands on them. Don't let them put their hands on you. Just keep remote. You can be friendly towards them and don't become involved. If you weep and you start weeping amongst them and it does not matter who they are, I will promise you, you're gonna hurt that counseling process.
Even though your heart may break for them, but if you open it, they are looking for someone who has guidance and strength. They don't need someone who's gonna break down in front of them. Now, you may weep after they're gone and there've been many times that I have just wept as I've dealt with something because I just couldn't bring them out of it at that point.
And there are times when you weep at other times for people, but if you do it in front of them and there've been many times you will catch yourself with tears coming up in your eyes from what they tell you.
It just hurts your heart what they say to you, but yet you have to control that situation and you let them see that God is able to give strength within that weakness. Because if you just completely collapse on them and you start hugging them, oh, yes, and both of you stand there, you'll spend 15, 20 minutes weeping and then you gotta get your composure and then it's all shot.
You say, well, that's a little calloused and it's a little cold. No, no, not at all. Read the life of the apostles. Read the life of the Lord and we'll see that this was done time and time again. And then, of course, it is not the fourth one in the order.
It is extremely important. Commit that problem to the Lord. Commit that problem to the Lord. Pray about that problem. Of course, he knows and obviously he understands everything. But, and I am so guilty of this, if the counselor is worrying about that problem that this person has, then it is obvious that that person who's trying to help the individual is not trusting the Lord to solve that problem.
As our brothers already told us, as Brother Harold has said on more than one occasion, worrying, and I'm the world's greatest at trying to worry about somebody else's problem, worrying doesn't solve the problem.
It just adds. They got one and now I got one. And it just, if we trust the Lord, he will meet the needs of that counselee and we can pray for them. And we say, Lord, work through my life to help this person.
God, give me discernment to see what this person is really saying. Lord, I commit John Doe's problem to you and I know that you're working on it. God, will you help John Doe to have clear light? Help John Doe to see what I'm trying to say and God, help them to see spiritual light and spiritual truth.
And when I share the scripture with John Doe, Lord, would you bind the enemy to the point where the light of the gospel can shine through? And God will begin to move. Now, what is the dangers involved?
What are the dangers? There is one major danger. There are many dangers, but one major danger that I like to mention and have to mention in becoming too deeply involved with a person. It's a very strange phenomenon, but if you understand demonic powers and if you understand spiritual warfare, a person can readily see how it can happen.
It is very interesting that the counselor can develop identically the same problem as the counselee. It is utterly fantastic and amazing. If a person gets too deeply involved, they themselves, objectivity, of course, is readily lost by the counselor.
They no longer look at it objectively and they actually have become ill, to use that word generally speaking, with the same difficulty that the person who came to them. I've had people after people after people.
I have letter after letter after letter filed full of letters of people who went and said, you know, I was like, let me give you one example and it's in spiritual warfare, but it applies here. There was a lady in Arlington, Texas, who was involved in some, just very minor, in some occult, to her it was minor, in occultic matters.
And she met a Christian young married lady and this girl began to try to guide her out of that to the Lord. And she had another friend who was a prayer partner and a Bible studier with her and they were buddies and so she brought her into the process and both of them began to work with this girl.
Well, one day, they called me and my wife knows them both and we have known them for several years and this one girl said, you know, I need to talk to you and I said, what? And the other girl's on another extension.
Said, you know this girl we were talking to you about? And somebody, yes, yes. Said, well, she's going to the hospital. I said, what's the matter? Said, well, she is going to have an emergency hysterectomy.
And I said, oh. She said, yes. I said, well, is that what the doctor concludes? Has she gone to get another opinion, et cetera, et cetera? And she said, no. She said, but we want to talk to you about, she says, you know, we began to have difficulties and I've gone to my doctor and he says, I've got to have an emergency hysterectomy.
I am a hemorrhaging. And I said, oh. And the other one pipes up on Ellie and says, and me too. And I said, well, you obviously know what's happening. You know what's happening. And they said, well, what we are, so they had just kind of gotten their eyes, so we gave them their spiritual declarations and the prayer truths to use and they began to do that and neither one of them's had a hysterectomy and I said, if you can get this girl to us quickly, then we can probably help her stay from surgery.
Maybe it is a medical problem, but it might not be. It might not be, just maybe the enemy. Well, the girl went on and had hers, but the other two, they still have never had one and it's been four or five years.
I can give you all kinds of incidents like that and so can other people who involve themselves in this, but it's extremely possible when you deal with a person in a major worse depression, self-pity, tension, the endomagnetic disorder is, we can get that working in our life simply because of soul power or psychic energy that comes from that individual and also the display of demonic powers.
They are everywhere, dear people, and they flit around us everywhere. You can go nowhere that there aren't demonic powers. Well, Brother Rocky, what we'll do is we'll just put the church under the blood.
You can't. Not if there are lost people here, you can't. No, and a Christian's already under the blood, so you can't put them under either. No, you see, these little things we throw out, it's a matter of realization and so what I'm saying to you is we have to be very careful that we remain remote and remember that we're depending upon God, we're depending upon Jesus Christ, and we're depending upon the Holy Spirit of God to help us deal with this individual and we're not trying to convey to them anything from mentality or intellectualism.
We don't want to take that problem and make it ours and take it home before long. It's involved in our home and it's in our own life, so this is one of the great dangers of that. Our judgment becomes colored by our emotional feelings and then that counselee begins to sense this instability in the one who's trying to help them and then they'll move away from you or you'll not be able to help them at all and what they need to do is attain a steadiness in their life, they've got to have a pause in their life and they've got to have this stability in their life.
Now, if you confront a problem, to keep them getting further involved in it, we have to be very, very careful. People will even try to get you to give them medical advice. I've had people come and I'm thinking of a young boy, he was seven years of age and his mom said he's on Thorazine, he's considered hyperactive by the doctors and Thorazine's the only thing that'll slow this kid down, he goes crazy all the time.
I mean, he just runs and you can't slow him down. So we set them up on a pattern of praying, of how to pray and we'll cover that tomorrow on how to pray for this kid and just some patterns of praying in the kid's presence and how to pray for them as parents.
And they began to pray for this boy. Well, he said, well, he's getting better. Should I take him off of Thorazine? I said, I can't tell you to take him off of Thorazine. I'm not a medical doctor. Go talk to your doctor.
And so we took him to the doctor and the doctor checked him out and said, well, he doesn't need it anymore. What's happened? And he couldn't understand it. Now, there are all kinds of those. Those are the easy ones.
Those are the easy ones. But people will ask you, people will ask you for legal advice. Do we not understand that we can actually be sued if we give someone legal advice? Can give legal advice. We're not a practicing attorney.
It's in many places, it's against the law to give legal advice. And if he gets into a court, they'll say, well, he told me, they'll say, why did you tell this boy? Well, we said, well, the law says this and we quote it to him.
That's extreme.