Social Relationships — Stephen Olford

Social Relationships and Christian Responsibility

This is not an address in the sense in which I bring an address at chapel hours, a theme clearly thought out, driving to a target. This is something I just want to share with you in a conversational way.

I want to say some very straight things, direct things. I want to touch on some very delicate matters. I also want to say some very simple and matter-of-fact things regarding what I'm calling in a general way, social relationships.

Prayer and the Need for Wisdom

Social relationships. Now, once again, let's just lift our hearts to the Lord. Dear Lord, in this precious, delicate subject, grant us the wisdom to speak and grant us the grace to listen and to apply the principles to our own lives, that we shall have many solutions here to problems and perplexities which have obtained thus far.

Lead us through into the liberty of the Spirit, in this matter, for Jesus' sake. Amen. Before I branch right into the subject, I just want to pause to say this. I'm talking as a young man. I'm thinking through your mind, largely, looking through your eyes, speaking through your lips, feeling through your heart.

I'm not speaking as a Dutch uncle, I'm not speaking as an old grandfather. I'm speaking as a young man who has faced some of the problems that many of you are facing here. And as a pastor and as a young minister in my own church, and in convention work, conference work, and even evangelistic work, I'm up against this whole problem of sex relationships, social relationships, perhaps more than any one other problem.

And I want to say the reason I'm speaking on this subject tonight is because so many have asked me to speak on it, not because I've elected to speak on it. It's been a request from faculty and students.

And I'm also speaking on this subject because one day you're going to be on the mission field, one day you're going to be an evangelist, one day you're going to be a youth leader, one day you're going to have your pastoral sessions in your own church.

And if you haven't an answer in relation to this matter, then quit the ministry altogether, get back home and sell bananas. And I mean that. Don't you face the ministry if you haven't a complete answer before God is touching your sex life.

What's shaken and shattered me is to know of ministers, brother ministers, men I've known who've completely collapsed and broken down in relation to morality and sex life. And more ministers still who can stand up in the platform and have no answer to an audience who are crying out in defeat and frustration in relation to this very matter.

And so I say it isn't just for your sake, it's for those to whom you're going to minister in coming days. Well now, time's going, so let's just branch right into it. I want to take it very simply, and I may have to go back over ground again and again in order to make myself quite clear.

Christian Friendship, Sanctification, and Honor

Among the many gifts which the Lord Jesus has given to his people, perhaps Christian friendship, as I'm calling it tonight, Christian friendship is the sweetest and most precious. The truth of that statement is better experienced than explained, for I can tell you what a friendship means in my life, and you can tell me.

It's too deep, it's too precious, too wonderful to either paint or even describe. It's just something inward, but it's one of those precious gifts that God has given to mankind and especially to the Christian church.

No one can tell the sublime heights to which friendship can go if it's maintained, listen to me. Sanctification and honor, sanctification and honor, that's the little rephrase of the movement of music throughout this whole message this evening, sanctification and honor.

Now within the scope of Christian and social relationships, there are three characteristics of friendship that I think we ought to consider tonight. I would like to go broader than that, but I've got to limit myself.

Three characteristics of friendship. I'm going to call it, one, Christian comradeship, secondly, Christian companionship, and thirdly, Christian courtship. And all those three are quite different, though they have a lot in common.

Christian Comradeship and the Friendship of David and Jonathan

Now let's look at the first one, Christian comradeship. The word comradeship means one who shares a rule. That's just what the word means. It's used of soldiers who share the same barrack rule. It's a strong word, it's a rugged word, but it's a good word, Christian comradeship.

Now this is the sort of friendship, young people, this is the sort of friendship which usually exists between people of the same sex, two fellows, two girls, two men, two women. I suppose the best Bible illustration of this friendship is the friendship that existed between who?

David and Jonathan, amen, dead right. They could talk about their souls, if you read the story, being knit together. Their souls knit together. And you know that friendship went right on through their lives, until the tragic death of Jonathan.

There was never a break in the friendship. Whatever the situation was in relation to the father, Saul, whatever vicissitudes of life through which they passed, that friendship never stopped. It was a glorious friendship.

Sometimes we go to that very story to illustrate the friendship of the Lord Jesus with our souls. It's a beautiful story of the Old Testament. And you know, when Jonathan was killed in battle, David mourned the death of his friend.

Oh, David wept. David put sackcloth upon his body. And you remember that lament which is recorded for us in 1 Samuel 1, 2 Samuel 1, 26? He says this concerning Jonathan, he looks back upon that comradeship with that young man, Jonathan, and he says, Jonathan, thy love to me, thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

That was David's comment on a life of friendship with Jonathan, Christian comradeship. I could pause to illustrate that in contemporary life. Have you ever heard the two names over here of Mildred Cable and Francisca French?

Two wonderful lady missionaries who broke into the Tibetan border, Mildred Cable and Francisca French. Mildred Cable has gone to glory. But those two were absolutely welded together, two women. I think of two friendships in my own experience so far as a young man looking on, that was the friendship of my father, Fred Ulford, with his colleague, Leonard Gammon.

Mr. Gammon, the father of Philip Gammon, that some of you know here at Moody Bible Institute, or did know, Phil Gammon. There was a friendship that nothing could break. It was wonderful as a lad to watch the friendship of Len Gammon and Fred Ulford.

They knew each other, they had integrated their personalities into each other, and it was just wonderful. They could scrap together and still love one another, they could pray together, they could face situations together, they could utterly disagree and still love one another.

That was the friendship of Christian comradeship. Well now, that's a wonderful friendship, and God has given it to us. And if God ever gives you a comrade like that, praise God. And you know that you can have a comrade, you can have a comrade like that and still have other friends and be sociable with them.

You can have a comrade like that and still have a very happy, perfectly natural married life and still have a comrade. My father had his wife, or I wouldn't be here, and I can speak of a most harmonious, happy, glorious Christian home.

And yet my father had a wonderful comrade in Leonard Gammon. Well I needn't dwell on that, you can see that, don't you? That's the first aspect of friendship. Praise God for every one of you who'll have a comrade on the mission field.

Praise God for every one of you who'll have a comrade in your pastorate. Praise God for every one of you who'll have a comrade through life. And it started perhaps here, welded here at Bible School Institute.

And you'll write to each other and you'll meet one another at alumni conferences, and by and by you'll be separated perhaps by continents, but you'll still keep in touch because it's a glorious comradeship, it's a wonderful thing.

Christian Companionship and Sexual Self-Control

Then there is another aspect of Christian friendship which I'm going to deal with, and this one I'll have to weigh on for a few moments. It's what I'm calling Christian companionship. This is a little different.

The word means one who accompanies another. This is an aspect of friendship which is not so limited as Christian comradeship. It can be enjoyed without distinction of sex. It is attention to one another without intention on any particular one.

I hope you got that. It is attention to one another without intention on any particular one. Companionship is a word which includes the whole friendship of the fellowship of the Christian Church. Now then, here's where the snag comes.

It is in relation to such companionship that Paul says certain guiding principles in this chapter of 1 Thessalonians 4. He says it must be preserved in sanctification and honor. That is, sanctification separated unto God and honorable before men.

And this sort of friendship involves the discipline of sex appetite and sex appeal. And I'm going to tell you that even though God has given us this wonderful friendship called companionship within the Christian Church, it exists here at Moody as a student body, it'll exist wherever you go throughout the world, wherever there are Christians, you'll find companions.

Though it's such a precious gift, do you know it can be prostituted? Do you know within that very wonderful friendship horrible things can happen? And that's where the guiding principles of the Apostle Paul come in, for he says, remember, because you've become a Christian, you haven't lost your sex appeal.

Because you've become a Christian, you haven't lost your sex appetite. It's how they're to be preserved and guarded in sanctification and honor so that they won't ruin what God intends to be a very precious friendship.

Now then, the world has one way of dealing with sex appetite and sex appeal, and God has another way. Let's look at man's way for a moment. And unfortunately, it's man's way we follow in institutes like this.

It's man's way we follow in churches. It's man's way we follow in Christian circles. Alas! And it's rampant in America. It's rampant in America. And so it is in Britain. Here's man's way. Man's way, this is the shy sort of person who's got a little bit reticent about ever really releasing himself in any sort of sex appeal or sex appetite.

He says the answer is repression. Repression. So he sits on his sex appetite. Repression is the attempt to ignore sex appetite and suppress sex energy which God has created within us. He's a man who tries to ignore that these things are within us.

God's given us. Let's don't look at sex as a murky, dirty sort of subject. That's where the world has brought it down. God put this mechanism into us. Let's bring it into the presence of his glory and in the blaze of his presence say, Lord Jesus, thank you for making me like that.

It's wonderful, but I want you to guard that mechanism so that it doesn't damn my life. It'll drive my life. But the world says, no, repress it. Sit on it. Hold it down. You know what happens, don't you?

The result, at its worst, is usually either the hospital or the asylum. And that's a fact. Psychopathic people up and down America today will be traced to the split personality and the break in their personality, usually to sex trouble.

In the case, in any case, repression and suppression of sex appetite, just sitting on them like sitting on a boiling kettle, eventually produces psychological or pathological abnormalities. And there are tons of Christians with abnormalities like that.

Tons of them. All over the place. All over the place. So it isn't repressionism as an answer. The world says, very well then, if it isn't repressionism, I know what it is, and this is the most popular, of course, and this is contemporary with the age.

It's expressionism. Expressionism. And Paul, who is a great psychologist, Paul who is a master analyst and diagnostician, Paul analyzes to us, in the three words I gave you just now from 1 Thessalonians 4, the three ways of sex expressionism.

Three ways of sex expressionism. Here they are. Number one, defrauding. Defrauding. He says, you remember, that everyone should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, that no man go beyond and defraud, oppress, overreach his brother in this matter.

What do I mean by defrauding? My friend, defrauding is exciting hungers which you know you cannot righteously satisfy. Let me repeat that slowly. Defrauding is exciting hungers which you know you cannot righteously satisfy, whether between girl or girl, fellow or fellow, or girl and fellow.

And make no mistake about it. And it takes the form of self-abuse, it may take the form of sodomy, it may take the form of petting, necking, and flirting. And I want to be absolutely straight, and I want to go clean down the line.

No one can live a sanctified life. No one can live in the power of the Holy Ghost. No one can live honorably before men. No one can live the life I've been preaching every day in chapel hour here and defraud his brother or his sister in this matter.

No one. And you can take it or leave it, as we shall see in a moment. It rules out utterly. Such things as masturbation, perversion, sodomy, petting, necking, flirting, they're all in the same class. And I want to take just a moment to say something to the fellows, and then I'm going to take a word and say something to the girls.

Look fellows, you have no conception, unless you're a married man, unless you've had experience as much as I have, an evangelistic world all over the world, dealing with young people and older folk, having pastoral sessions galore.

You have no conception what a mishandling of the life of a girl can mean in future life. You can set biological machinery into action, and you can spoil and ruin a girl's life, and you can get away with it, but she can't.

She suffers ever after. You think it's the night out, you think it's pleasant, you think it's this, that, and the other, but actually you have started ruination there. And but for the grace of God, something dreadful can happen.

And then I'm talking to the girls, and I'm saying this, girls, you haven't a clue, you haven't a notion, you never will do. Girls can never know. As fellows can never know the other side, girls can never know.

What appeal, what a strain, what a tremendous magnetism you can create and generate by falsely, falsely living, and falsely behaving, and sexually acting in the presence of men. In other words, breaking the rules of sanctification and honor.

I am separate unto the Lord. I am honorable before men, because the Holy Ghost dwells in me, as we shall see in a moment. Defrauding. Defrauding is exciting hungers in one another that you know you cannot righteously satisfy.

Let's go further. Oppressing. Oppressing, my friend, is exerting a forceful personality upon a weaker vessel until you sap it of initiative, individuality, and vitality. You know one of the wickedest, one of the wickedest sins today is for a towering personality of a fellow, or a towering personality of a girl.

A girl can have it over another girl, a fellow can have it over another fellow, or a fellow can have it over a girl, and sometimes a girl over a fellow. There's a powerful personality that's brought to bear on a weaker vessel, so that you just sap them of initiative, individuality, yes, and of initiative, and vitality, by oppressing them.

Oppressing. And I want to warn anybody here who is suspecting what is known as a possessive friendship. I'm not talking about comradeship now, and I'm not talking about companionship. I'm talking about that sort of friendship which is just like the dog and his master.

Master everywhere he goes, dog follows, and there's no separation. There's sheer possessiveness there. It can be very unhealthy, and it can lead to oppression. The third is overreaching. Overreaching.

Now that explains itself. Overreaching, my friend, is exceeding the laws of chastity and holiness until disaster comes. I was talking to the principal of a Bible college just a little while ago who was over in our country, and he told me the shattering news that nearly 30, 30 of the students in a Christian school had to be sent home because of immorality.

They had exceeded the laws of chastity and holiness, and disaster had fallen. To behave like this is to be judged by God. Oh, my dear young people, let me say it from God's own word and from my heart and all my love for you.

Listen to me. Listen to me with both your ears. To defraud, to oppress, to overreach is to merit the judgment of God upon you as a Christian. For the Lord is the avenger of all such as we have forewarned you and testified.

Now, nothing could be clearer than that. Nothing could be clearer than that. So man's way, man's way is either repressionism or expressionism. And expressionism, as we've seen, takes these three forms.

Follow them. Snap your finger. Say, I couldn't care less. Who's Stephen Olsen anyway to tell me? You'll get it. Be sure your sin will find you out. By defrauding, you're going to spoil and ruin a life, and you'll have to answer for it at the judgment seat of Christ.

By oppression, you're going to drain and sap another vessel so that they can't be used for Jesus Christ. It'll be revealed at the judgment seat of Christ. You may hide it and get away now, but you won't dare.

No, you won't. No, you won't. You can't condemn sin in the sinner and condone it in the saint. Overreaching? Well, that may visit you right now, and you'll go out in shame. Go out in shame. Do you know that I have a mental picture now of a council away there in the British Isles?

I had to sit on that mission board, and in one afternoon, one afternoon, we had to go through the papers of three missionaries, two fellows, and one girl that had to be sent back from the field. They'd gone through Bible school, dynamic, super young folk who could preach the gospel, sent back, every one of them overreaching.

Liberty Through the Holy Spirit

Well, now, listen. That's man's way. God's way, thank God, is this. Listen carefully to this. Not limitation, not license, but liberty. Not limitation, not license. I'm using a psychological term here, but sublimation.

Now, it's wonderful that in the context of this very passage, Paul finishes up with this. He, therefore, that despises, despises not man, but God. Praise God, this, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit.

Now, listen to me. I was talking this morning about crowning Jesus Lord of your life, and the Holy Spirit flowing from your life, ankle, knees, thighs, waters to swim in. Listen. Before we leave this auditorium tonight, I am praying and hoping that in this very place where we have dealt with God as touching our general, general yieldedness, we're going to deal with our particular yieldedness, and we're going to say, Lord Jesus, as from tonight, as from tonight, thank you, I praise you for my sex life.

I thank you, you created me like that. I thank you, you gave me sex appetite. I thank you, you gave me sex capacity. I thank you that you've given me that wonderful mechanism in me that's creative, for that is our creative life.

But, Lord Jesus, I want you to take it under your control. I want the Holy Spirit to master it, and I want the Holy Spirit to so control it and hold it in check that my whole life will be of sanctification as touching God, and honor as touching man.

If you yield your mind to Jesus Christ, you will be an intelligent Christian. If you yield your heart to Christ, you will be a devotional Christian. If you yield your will to Christ, you will be a forceful Christian.

If you yield your sex life to Jesus Christ, you will be a dynamic Christian. I have no authority for saying this, but I have a personal conviction that John chapter 7 has a reference to this very thing.

You know where it says, he that believeth into me, we were dealing with it this morning, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. Where's the innermost being of a person? Where is that?

If you look in the authorized version, you'll read it, not his innermost being. Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. I believe that the center of a man's life is that creative side, just there, the very heart of his sex life.

That's what makes him dynamic. That's what makes him appeal. That's what makes him creative. Now, when the Holy Spirit is reigning there, he takes those energies, and instead of letting them go down in suppressionism or expressionism, he leads them out in sublimation and usefulness and liberty.

And you know when the Holy Spirit, this is wonderful, listen to me, I'm telling you this from my own experience, when the Holy Spirit is lord of your sex life, lord of your sex life, you know what happens?

God puts a wall of fire around you, and when any girl or fellow man or woman tries to break that wall of fire to get in for things that he hasn't a right to or she hasn't a right to, they get bitten. They get bitten.

As soon as they try to break through, they get a shock. This man's a holy man, I can't do that with him. This woman's a holy woman, I daren't do that with her. Sanctification and honor. And their life is one of honor.

And I'll tell you another thing. That sort of person hasn't that sloppish, sentimental, stupid, flatting sort of way about them. Instead, they carry a poise and a resilience and a dignity of friendship.

And they're grand companions, they're full of fun, they're just sparkling with fun and they're good fun. And they know how to behave. They know how to behave in the presence of men, they know how to behave in the presence of women, vice versa.

They know how to behave in any company. Why? Because they're just absolutely poised in the self-control and sanctification of the Holy Spirit. And when I talk about liberty, I mean exactly what I said last night in preaching at the Moody Memorial Hall.

Liberty in the scriptural sense is not the desire to do what you want. Liberty is the power to do what you ought. And thank God that we have been called not to uncleanness, says 1 Thessalonians 4, but unto holiness.

And the secret of this holiness is the Holy Ghost. Only the Holy Ghost can sublimate and control our sex appetites and appeal so to make our vessels unto sanctification and honor. I don't think I'll stay with that any longer.

I hope I've driven that right home. Right home. Don't be a beast. Don't be an animal. Because that's man's way. Man's way is repression or expression. And that's nothing but animal. That's the lowest level.

Defrauding, oppressing, overreaching. Don't be even a carnal Christian who's half and half. Be a spiritual Christian whose sex life is under the control of the Holy Ghost. And why? He takes that sex energy and he sublimates it and you have a passion for souls, you have a passion for study, you have a passion for everything you do.

Christian Courtship and Marriage

You become dynamic. Well now there's a third aspect of friendship. There's a lot of waiting for this, I know. The third aspect of friendship is Christian courtship. Oh, blessed, blessed experience for those who are called to it.

Christian courtship. This is, this is the God-guided friendship which leads ultimately to marriage. The pattern and principle which determine happy, successful Christian courtship, in my judgment, are laid down for us completely and categorically in Genesis chapter 2.

And that's why the Lord Jesus, when asked about this subject, pushed them right over to the Old Testament. In the beginning, God. Go back there. In the beginning, God. And so let's go back there ourselves.

Let's turn then to Genesis chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2 and the verses we read together. Now if you study this beautiful story of the first love match, you'll see how God initiated it, how he guarded it, how he completed it.

And I want you to notice two main points, with three subheadings in each. Two main points in this wonderful story. This story of the first love match. This story of the first marriage. This story when God brought two lives together in fusion and made them one.

Here are the two main headings. One, God's concern. And secondly, God's control. Now let's come back to the first one. First, God's concern. In God's concern, I want you to see a principle, young people, that I hope you'll never, never, never, never want to question again.

If you look at the movements of Genesis, the first thing was that God created Adam. The very next thing in the experience of Adam was his sex relationship. Sex adjustment. Sex sublimation. That was the very next thing.

And I'm absolutely convinced in my mind that the next thing to my conversion, to my new birth, is that I get this thing right in the presence of God or else it's going to worry me all along down the line.

It's going to affect my studies, it's going to affect my friendships, it's going to affect my service, it's going to affect everything. Let's get it right. And the first thing I want to lay down this evening is this, that God's far more concerned about your life partner than you could ever be.

God's Concern for Human Pleasure and Partnership

Oh, you dear folk who think you're going to be left on the shelf. You people who say, oh dear, dear, dear, dear, will it ever come my way. I want to say this, just on that wave of happy humor. Listen, listen.

God is far more concerned about a life partner for you than you could be ten million times. Doesn't bring Miss Right. If God doesn't bring Mr. Right clean into your life and show you in the way I'm going to demonstrate tonight, then he's calling you to a life of celibacy and singleness which has its own compensations as we shall see presently, and you have no right to question his judgment, no right at all.

But oh, lay it down in your mind and never question it again. Whatever my concern is around the circles of my life, sometimes it's worth there, not so bad there, not so bad there, almost banished here, now it gets worth the circles of life, what C .S. Lewis calls the trough experiences, the undulations of life, the cycles of life.

It's worth it sometimes than others. Sometimes it doesn't worry you at all, and other times it's just a cocking care. Get down basically in your mind that God's more concerned about it than you could ever be.

That's clear enough. Very well then. God's concerned about it for three reasons. I'm talking now about life partners. God's concerned about it, first of all, for human pleasure. What do you say? Human pleasure?

Yes. God saw that it was not good for man to live alone. And God's always longing that we should live happy lives. And if God sees that your life is never going to be fully and completely happy without a life partner, he'll bring the life partner.

And just as God's relation to his son, and the son's relationship to the church, so the husband's relationship to the wife, according to Ephesians. And if God looks down upon his son with pleasure, and the son looks down upon his church with pleasure, the husband to look down upon his wife with pleasure, and the wife to the husband.

So teaches the Ephesian epistle. And God wants us to be happy. And if happiness, in your particular instance, will never be fully realized without a life partner, he'll see that one comes along. For he saw that it was not good for Adam to live alone.

He's concerned about it not only because of human pleasure, but secondly because of human partnership. Because we go further and we read that he built a woman and helped meet a partner for Adam. Two are better than one.

One shall chase a thousand, two shall put ten thousand to flight. And there are instances when God says, two are better than one. Other times he says, no, I want one single person here. But there's a partnership in marriage, and I'm telling you this, that partnership's one of the most precious things that any married couple can ever know.

You know I believe that the most intense, powerful, prevailing prayer is the secret of a married couple who know what it is to be absolutely one in the Lord and in the city. Because if you read Peter carefully, you'll notice a warning in Peter's epistle to couples who are not looking to one another in honor, and the husband not recognizing the weaker vessel, and therefore prayers are being hindered.

When the Lord Jesus brought my partner into my life, one of the things I asked, first of all, was the Lord would fuse our spirits, our souls, together in such a way that in any situation in my ministry when I couldn't even trust the Church, I couldn't trust the whole set of praying people, Heather and I could get down on our knees and know that our agreement in love and life would go crashing through to the very throne and bring down the answer I couldn't get any other way.

Partnership. Partnership. Partnership in life. Partnership in love. Partnership in service. Partnership. Help-meet. That's what the word means. Help-meet. Somebody stepped before to ever be your help-meet.

The third reason, of course, of God's concern in love, courtship, and marriage, is not only human pleasure and human partnership, but certainly human parenthood. Human parenthood. Because if you read very carefully in chapter 1 in verse 28, God blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it.

And I want to say this. There are people who expounded that word in Peter, and I go again to Peter because he's the married man, and in his epistle he has more to say about these delicate points of marriage than anyone else.

He uses a phrase that you'll remember. Talking about marriage, he goes on to say, Those who are the heirs of the grace of life. The grace of life. If you ever hear a preacher get up and talk about that grace of life there, heirs of the grace of life, and talk about it as eternal life, go up and tell him that it's poor exegesis.

The grace of life there is a peculiar privilege given to two people brought in a marriage made in heaven. It's something denied angels, archangels, and every other host in heaven. It's given to men and women who are married in the Lord.

And it's that bringing into the world little lives sanctified before birth, at birth, brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, to honor the parents, and one day to become the very basis of a Christian home, which is the very keystone of civilization.

Nothing more wonderful, as far as marriage goes, than the treasured privilege and honor. It humbles me in the dust every day as I think of my little Jonathan, three years of age. Oh God, oh God, help Heather and me to bring that little treasured life up unharmed by mishandling from the parents.

Oh Lord, may he breathe in the very atmosphere of heaven in the home. From a child may he learn the scriptures which are able to make him wise unto salvation. He's concerned. He's more concerned about it than you.

He's concerned for your pleasure, your human pleasure. He's concerned for your human partnership. He's concerned for your human parenthood. Let's move on to God's control in the matter. And my, this story brings it out.

God's Control in Courtship

Listen carefully. In this story in God's control, we have, first of all, love's preparation. Then we have love's revelation. Then we have love's consummation. Love's preparation. How did God prepare Adam for Eve?

And how did God prepare Eve for Adam? Here's how God prepared, first of all, Adam for Eve. Listen to me very carefully. God came down in the cool of the evening and had a talk with Adam and said, Adam, listen, you don't know what's missing in your life.

You've never seen what I'm going to talk about. You haven't omniscient. You're only a human being. You're a created being. Therefore, you can't know what's missing in your life. But listen, you need a partner in your life.

And God began to talk to Adam about a life partner. And Adam listened to God. And Adam acquiesced in God's will. Because God could have never pressed a woman upon his life without his consent. It would have been immoral.

And we've got to accept it as an implication, a clear implication, that Adam said, right, Lord, do anything you like with me. Right, said God. Will you sleep in my will? And God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.

A deep sleep to fall upon Adam. God took out of him that with which to build the woman. And I want to hurry here and say this. And this is terribly important. Listen, young people, perhaps this is the most vital thing I can say here tonight.

The most vital thing. If you want God to bring the partner of his choice in your life, you have to be willing to sleep in his will. You have to be willing to say, Lord, I'm going to sleep and rest in your will until you awaken me to the right partner.

They may get second best, but they can never, never guarantee that they'll get God's best. But if you're prepared to say, Lord, I'm prepared to sleep in thy will, and as I sleep in thy will and rest in thee, make it a matter of prayer as often as it recurs to my mind, and then just leave it with thee.

Say, Lord, you'll bring the right one, and live a healthy life of companionship in the fellowship of the church. He'll bring the right one along. And listen, while you're asleep in the will of God, do you know what you'll be able to do?

You'll be able to take out of your life that with which to build character in other people's lives. And you'll never show me a person who goes around necking and flatting and petting and living the basic sort of life who's a man or a woman and building character into other people's lives, or even being a soul winner.

But let's put it another way, and this is terribly important. Unless you're sleeping in God's will, God will never build a wife for you, because he's not going to build a second-rate wife. He's not going to build a wife that's going to fit into your loose, immoral sort of living.

No, no, no. It's only when you're living on the highest level of his will that he'll bring the right partner along, from building the woman to fit into a life that's living a holy, sanctified, honorable testimony to God.

Love's preparation. He built you the woman. He caused the deep sleep to come upon Adam. Secondly, love's revelation. Now do you know I'm absolutely thrilled that there is nothing here in this story that tells us just how Adam was awakened.