Should people have sex before marriage? #Marriage #Adultery #christianity

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Jeff from Iowa. Hey, Jeff, welcome. You are on the air. Hi, Matt.

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What's going on? A radio. So what do you got, buddy? Um, you know,

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I, I just want to hear your thoughts on dating. You talk about religion enough. Um, you know,

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I think we should talk about dating, but what are your thoughts on like, you know, should you, should you have sex, you know, after marriage or, you know, could you have it before marriage?

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What are your thoughts on that? Like the, the ideal situation. Wow. The ideal situation is that the man that's your male,

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I'll talk to you about that. The ideal situation for a Christian man is that he does not touch his girlfriend, uh, in any inappropriate way.

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Sexual relations are only for marriage, only for marriage. And there should be no heavy, uh, et cetera, et cetera, stuff going on.

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You should always guard her dignity and guard her honor. You should never seek to steal from her what does not belong to you because you've not vowed before God, before her and before people, the, uh, the vows of marriage and sexual relationship is for that only.

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And it's the only context. So, uh, I say to people, and I do counseling and I'll say it here, that if you are dating someone and you're having relations with someone like that, and you claim to be a

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Christian, well, don't call yourself a Christian for one thing, because you're in fornication and dire rebellion against God.

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You need to repent immediately. And I've had couples that I've married counseled, uh, premarital counseling and performed their weddings when, um, they've,

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I have found out, for example, that they fooled around and, you know, I say, okay, we need to talk about this.

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And I say, do you realize it is a great sin against God and against each other?

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And I give them the theology. I show them the scriptures about fornicators, not inheriting the head at the kingdom of God, first Corinthians six, nine, and how people are succumbing to their physical desires over their honor of God.

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And in light of that, I say to the woman who's sitting there and say, so you're engaged, right?

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Yeah. Okay. And you're, you fooled around, right? You know, do you want to trust this guy in your marriage? You want to trust him?

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He's willing to go to bed with you and do those things which are ungodly and unholy because it's not in the sanctified bonds of marriage.

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And you're willing to unite with him permanently for the rest of your life. Is this the kind of guy you want? It's a sobering thought.

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And then I turned to him and I say the same thing about her. She's willing to go to bed with you before you even get married.

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What kind of a woman is that? What kind of a Christian woman is that? Yeah. I hit him hard and this is how it needs to happen.

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And I said, you will never do this again until you get married. You agree. And I say, if you don't agree, the counseling is over.

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I don't perform your wedding ceremony. And if you do agree, we can continue. And if you do fall again in that, then the wedding is postponed six months while we go through counseling.

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And I said, those are the rules. And it shakes people up. And so if you're dating, if you're a man, you're dating a girl, you should be opening the car door for her, opening doors for her.

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She's the weaker vessel and your obligation is to protect her. And then when she's in your company, you're responsible to protect her.

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Now you can't do everything all the time, but you're obligated to make sure that she's okay in your presence.

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And if you're going to be alone with her, which I don't recommend, but I understand how things work sometimes.

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But even in that context, you need to make sure that she is guarded and protected and her honor and her sanctity before God and before people.

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That's your obligation and that it should not be compromised. And that she needs to know that that's the kind of man you are because you're going to set that example.

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And if you are faithful before marriage and you consider all this to be that serious, then when you make a vow before God about being committed to this woman, she'll take you a lot more seriously.

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And you're going to need that particularly in marriage. And when I was in college,

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I was a few years older than the average person in the Christian college. And they started coming to me, the girls did.

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And so, you know, what do we do about these guys? A lot of these guys in a Christian college were just sinful.

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I said, here's what you can do. When you go on a date, you take your

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Bible with you. You get in the car. If he doesn't open the door for you, just walk away. He's not worth dating.

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And if he opens the door, good. You get in the car and you hand him a Bible and you say, you say, you know, could you please open to any place in scripture and just teach me for one minute?

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Now, if he says, why would I want to do that? Get out of the car and walk away. It's over.

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You're done. If he says, well, he fumbles through it, opens the word and he fumbles through it.

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Doesn't do a fantastic job. That's okay. But he's willing to use the word of God and to, to look into the word of God.

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And if this is the kind of woman that she's going to be, that she's going to demand that he be that kind of man and it should work vice versa.

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A man needs to be obligated to take care of his future wife, potential wife. But here's something to think about.

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Marriage is a three -way covenant between the couple, the man and the woman, between the man and the woman and God and the man and the woman and the community.

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And it's a vow of word of commitment. And it therefore, because it's based in the work of God, it's a

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Holy commitment. Though marriage can be tough. My marriage has been very difficult at times, but my wife and I are still together.

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And this month we will have been married 36 years and we're still together.

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But here's the thing is that the man needs to understand that he's the one responsible so that, uh, when they look at scripture,

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Adam and Eve were in the garden, she sinned first, she gave the fruit to Adam. He sinned. They both hid themselves. The pre -incarnate

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Christ came to the man and said, where are you? You didn't say Eve, what have you done? Adam and Eve, what have you done to the man?

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Where are you? He went to him. You have as a male, as a male, automatically that responsibility with any woman that God would dare to trust you with, because you've got to understand a lot of men have to understand this, that a woman is a weaker vessel in a lot of areas and we're obligated to protect.

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And why would God trust you with a woman who's supposed to be a godly woman?

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Are you worth that trust that God is granting to you by being with a woman and dating her, maybe getting serious, guarding her reputation, her body, not lusting after her, and then considering her to be more important than yourself so that if and when you get married, she already knows that you're a godly faithful man to God first and then to her second.

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And that kind of a marriage will last. You see the way of the world is selfish.

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Give me, give me, I want you to satisfy my lust. And as long as I love you, it's okay.

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And I'll defy God based on my feelings and my rational thought and my desires.

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And such things lead to death, lead to sin, lead to rebellion. So godly men are to honor their future wives, potential wives in all areas in all cases.

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That's how it's supposed to be. Okay. Are you willing to do that?

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Um, I mean, yeah. You mean, um, I mean, yeah. And then it sounds to me like you're not ready to date a woman.

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Are you a Christian? What? Are you a Christian? I'm Catholic, buddy.

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Oh, so you're not really a Christian. So the thing is, yeah, according to you, yeah. According to the scriptures, because Roman Catholicism teaches idolatry and it promotes a works righteousness.

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So you've not trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. And instead of starting in a church, because in Catholicism, you can go to your priest and get forgiven.

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You can go sin and you can go get forgiven and do all these things. So you can justify various things. But if you're a true

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Christian, the Lord Jesus Christ lives in your heart and you have to answer to him directly. You don't go through the mediation of some church or Mary or some priest.

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You go to Christ. When he's in your heart, you'll take your relationship with any woman very, very, very, very seriously.

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And that's how it's supposed to be. You know, I have friends here and they have wives and it's understood that when we men are in a group with our wives, each man looks after his own wife and the wives of the others.

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We all keep guard. And each one of us knows that the other will, if necessary, give our lives to protect their wives as well.

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These are the godly men that I hang around with. You can ask yourself, what kind of a man are you?

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Are you going to trusting in your church for your salvation, your baptism? You're trusting in Mary.

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Forget all that stuff. It's not scriptural. It's not biblical. Are you trusting in Christ alone?

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And if you do, then he's in your heart, John 14, 23, and your commitment is to him. And if your commitment is to him and he's living in you, you're not going to want to trust him.

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You serve your own flesh, at least objectively, you're not supposed to. And if you meet some nice woman who would dare to lower her standards to date you, that's what happened in my case, then perhaps

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God will bless you. But he's got to be in your heart because you only have one throne there.

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It's either going to be Jesus or your church. And if it's your church, then you've exalted something in place of him and your idolatry will continue in the serving of your own flesh.

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Let's see if Jeff's still on the line. You still there? Hey, Matt. Okay. So that's a smack upside the head.

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I'm surprised you're still here. You got any comments or anything you want to add? Anything I want to add?

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Um, I don't know. I mean, I agree with everything you said.

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I mean, the Catholic stuff is up for debate. I mean, no, it's not up for debate. I don't, I don't want it to beat you, man.

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Um, because you, you destroy me, but I don't know. I was just, I was just curious on the whole dating thing.

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Uh, how old are you? I'm 20. Okay. Now I know what it means to be 20 and I know what testosterone is and I know what it does.

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And it is a, both a light and a cloud. It's, it's good and it's bad.

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Trust me. I remember it well and women don't understand what testosterone is. It changes us.

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It, it's powerful. And also the male brain is not generally mature until about the age of 25.

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Okay. So you got, so to speak, no disrespect, man, but you got two strikes against you. You know, you got the testosterone thing and you're pre -human.

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I like to call it pre -human for brains aren't developed. Women, they're done about 23, they mature a little bit faster.

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So you got some tough stuff going. What I would recommend you do, and this is just loving testimony.

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Okay. It's not, you know, I'm judging you personally or anything like that. It's just how we are as males. What I would suggest is that you get right with the

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Lord Jesus Christ and you, you pray and you ask him to forgive you. You ask him for his strength in you.

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And then you determine to honor him. And that the way to show that is by honoring others.

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Because to love God means you're going to have to love your neighbor because the love of God flows down through us.

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But you, you know, it's, this is not Catholic or non -Catholic. It's just, Hey, biblically speaking, it's hard and it's difficult, but the way to get through it through our stumblings, our failures is to turn to Christ constantly and rely on him.

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He's the only one worthy of that adoration and that complete and total dependence.

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And in him, you'll find that strength. If you want to honor him personally, then when, you know, some girl says, yeah, they go out and then you realize he's watching you.

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How are you going to treat her? He's asking you, so to speak. Are you opening the door for her? Are you guarding her?

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You're watching for her, making sure she, you go into a restaurant, you open the door for her, pull the chair out if it's necessary and appropriate.

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You know, you make sure that the conversation goes for good stuff and that you're interested in her and that, and you don't kiss her in a first date.

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You don't do all that kind of stuff. It's not why you're dating. Dating should be understood to be the examination of the potentiality of the marriage partner.

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And when I was dating, I would never kiss them on the first day. I wouldn't do that. I want to know what they were like.

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I want to know what their character was. I want to know what they liked and didn't like. I'm not going to let that stuff get in the way, the physical stuff.

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And though I wasn't perfect in all things, I'll tell you that. As I matured in the Lord, I learned these things.

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And if I were ever single again, looking for a potential wife, kind of, you know, sci -fi scenario, the number one thing would be her commitment to Christ is that commitment rocks solid and above everything else.

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And only then would she be a candidate. And that's just how it has to be.

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And then I would be under obligation before God to change my life.

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I would treat her in the most godly way I could, protecting her and honoring her and guarding her dignity.

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This is what we men are obligated to do. That's what you're obligated to do.

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If you take your eyes off of Christ and you put them on anything else, then you're committing idolatry. And if you take your eyes off of him and put them on her physique, if you know what

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I mean, and that's where your eyes go, and that's what your heart is dwelling on, then you're committing a form of idolatry and lust and that's sinful.

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So it's a tough thing. It is. I understand it. And we struggle and you'll struggle, but you have to have

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Christ in your heart to give you that strength. And true Christians are sons of light and the light shines upon our hearts and within us.

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And it'll come out in our words and our intentions. And if the intention that you have for a date is to fulfill selfish desires, then you shouldn't be dating.

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But if the intention of your date is, well, a little bit of selfish, you know, it's just nice to have female company.

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Okay, that's, I get it. But also is she a worthy woman before God or is she not?

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If she's not done, I don't care how good looking she is, how sexy, I don't care, too bad.

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You have to have a standard and the standard has to be Christ centered. And if it's not, you will fail.

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But if it's Christ centered, you'll stumble to success. And I say stumble because we're just not perfect, but you'll stumble forward to success.

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God will honor that. And you'll be surprised what will happen to you in your own heart before him. When you start being other centered and truly loving and giving like that protective and honoring of her dignity, her body, her emotions, you'd be surprised what happens to you.

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And you find that it becomes a conduit for the spirit of God to minister to you and through you.

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And it becomes addictive. Not that we want it for selfish reasons, but you enjoy the presence of God.

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And that's why you need to be dedicated to Christ. First of all, Him totally and completely.

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Then see if a woman can match that. See if God's working in her.

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And if you can't find that, don't settle because you'll be settling not only with her, but for yourself before God.

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And what kind of a man would you be at that point? Okay. Got it.

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Man, I'm becoming a slick -eyed already. Well, let me tell you why

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I know this stuff. I've counseled a great many people and I've made a great many mistakes.

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I have so many regrets. I'm a hypocrite because I preached greater and better than what

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I've done, but only by God's grace have I learned. And then I teach and I see, and as the

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Bible says in Romans 6, 21, what benefit were you then deriving of the things of which you're now ashamed?

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For the outcome of those things is death. I have plenty of things of my life that I regret in all kinds of areas.

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And I turn to them and judge them as sinful. I push them behind me.

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And I say that young man in so many ways, he's no longer here. And so I just try by God's grace to pass on the wisdom to others and call young men to be young men, not boys, not unsure, but confident men.

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And I'm going to tell you, you need to be a confident young man, confident in the things of Christ, but you're going to screw up because you're a young man, you're human like anybody, but you need to have your eyes on Christ and you mess up as you're walking towards him.

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That's okay. It's okay. He'll work with you and through you at that.