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Well, let's just start off with some questions. Certainly it's easy for me to try to stump you men and that's not the purpose of it to give you a hard question to see if you know the answer because anybody can stump someone with hard questions.
So let me just give a couple questions right off the bat to Lewis, a couple to Dave, and then a couple to Steve. Lewis, what was the position of the church in the Middle Ages concerning tradition and authority and what was the relationship in particular between dogmatics and exegesis in this period?
Dave, what are the three families of the Levites and what were their respective duties in the tabernacle? Additionally, what is the structural feature of the book of Numbers? Steve, just a couple quick questions, set forth the development of Israel's problems and history as given in the book of First and Second Kings.
And on a related note, what are the main themes and content of the books of First and Second Chronicles? Yes.
Can I answer about Ezekiel's vision?
Yeah, that's right. Alright, I just wanted to try to stump them but I can't keep a straight face and so really my goal tonight is I want you to understand their hearts as your shepherds and how they love the Lord and God has instilled in them a love for you and so it's not really data dump tonight, it's something else.
Alright, for each of you men and it can go in any order but I'd like each of you to answer the question. Could each of us, each of you tell us something wonderful that you've learned about God lately from your personal devotional life, study, or quiet times?
I'll go first. At the Bible study we've been studying R .C. Sproul's Holiness of God book and I was just struck and I shared this with Mike a week or two ago just in thinking about the angels specifically the Seraphim in Seraphim in Isaiah 6 and just thinking about how they covered their faces and we think of holiness in terms of sinlessness, in terms of perfection.
Well, have those angels ever sinned? And the answer is no. So why is it then that when they're in the presence of God they have to or they do cover their faces even though they have no sin? There's no reason that they being perfectly without sin could not look at God except for the fact that I think we have a vastly deficient view of the holiness of God.
If sinless angels will not look directly at God then how much more should we have a high view of the holiness of God? And so I think our, you know, to paraphrase Luther our thoughts of God are too human.
We don't think highly enough of him and specifically his holiness. So that was really, you know, every once in a while you just read something and you just go,.
That's really good. For me,.
When I was in my twenties and God had saved me, I thought that, I remember I was in the military in the army and I was 21 and listening to people who used to talk about how they have stress and they have knots in their back.
They have physical issues. And here I was at 20 and didn't have any of those things and I thought, what are these people talking about? And as the years have rolled on and I'm now over twice that age, I know exactly what they were talking about because I get the knots in my back and I get the I get the, just the creaking of my body.
And I was recently studying in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 where the Apostle Paul said that we know that this earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolving. And what he was saying there is that the body was made for temporary dwelling and it's only gonna last so long.
And I'm witnessing it, and we all are in our own lives, the personal dissolving, the melting away, the decaying, the corrupting of my physical body. And yet the hope that is in that same scripture there is, is that though this body does decay and though I do die and we all will, that absent from the body means to be present with the Lord.
And that has just, as again, as years have gone on, been so more real to me. And I like the Apostle Paul, not that I want to be unclothed, not that I want to die to be, to get out of this life, but to be clothed upon with immortality.
Is it gonna be a wonder? And we have such a hope that God has given us in the scriptures, even though there's something past this life that is living in a body that's decaying. It will be in an immortal body in the presence of God forever.
I actually have been reading in Ezekiel some but staying away from the vision right now and trying to speculate what that is all about. But it struck me reading through chapters 4, 5, 6, along in there, it's almost like a drumbeat that you begin to see, thus saith the Lord, thus saith the Lord, as as the Lord tells Ezekiel what he's going to do because his people have not obeyed him.
They have gone away from him and they have done it repeatedly. And so he keeps saying, thus saith the Lord, thus saith the Lord, this is what I'm going to do. And finally he gets to the end and he says, he gives the purpose of the whole thing, he says, and they shall know that I am the Lord.
They're gonna learn, he says, that I am the Lord. And I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them. I'm not kidding, says God to Ezekiel. And the thought occurs to me, you know, we live in a time in which we have so much in terms of resources.
We have the completed canon of scripture and if that's not enough, each of us has his own copy of the canon of scripture and we forget sometimes that men have died, have literally given their lives so that you can do that.
And I would suspect that everyone here has probably got multiple copies of their own copy of the scripture. So God gives us that. God has given us the Holy Spirit to be our teacher. And then we have all of these other things that have been given.
Men have written good books. One of them was just given away tonight. And there are tapes and there's things on the internet and it's an embarrassment of wealth. And isn't it better for us to study what God has to say to us and to learn what God wants to teach us and what he wants us to learn about, to know about himself, to do it the easy way instead of defying him because sooner or later, like God told Ezekiel, he said, you're gonna know.
You're gonna know. I'm going, you're gonna get the message sooner or later. You can get it the easy way or you can get it the hard way. And so he encourages us to learn it the easy way because he, what does he say?
My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Come and learn of me. Come and learn.
Good. Thank you, man. This is for each of you as well. What's the most exciting thing about serving at Bethlehem Bible Church?
I think for me the most exciting thing is that God would allow me or anybody to be able to be a part of what he's doing. The Lord Jesus Christ said that he was going to build his church. The gospel was given to us.
It's an entrustment to us as it says in 1 Thessalonians 2, 4, but as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak not as pleasing men but God who tries our hearts. And God is doing something and we can check out and not be a part of that or we can see what God is doing in the proclamation of the gospel, the saving of sinners, the sanctifying of the saints, bringing them to a place where they're more set apart for God and equipping the saints for the work of the ministry and we get and we're allowed to be a part of that and that is awesome.
That is exciting. We don't deserve that. And when I look at my life I know that I'm not worthy of that and yet that's what God does. He saves despicable sinners and makes them saints and his children and puts them into the to the work of the ministry and all of us get to do that together in some way, shape, or form.
Our ministry utilizing our spiritual gifts together and this is the work of God. It's not our church, it's his and it's a wonder to be able to be a part of that.
I would echo the same thing that the chance to be a part of something that is eternal and something that is bigger than you are, there's a probably apocryphal story but it's told over and over again Sir Christopher Wren, a man was going through to London and he came across three workmen who were working with rocks and what have you and he asked the first one, he said, what are you doing?
And he said, what does it look like I'm doing? I'm moving rocks. And he asked the second man, he said, what are you doing sir? And he said, I'm just making a living. And he went to the third one and he said, what are you doing sir?
Now remember all three of these men are doing the same job. But he gets to the third man and he says, what are you doing? And he says, why? I am helping Sir Christopher Wren build St. Paul's Cathedral.
One of those three men saw his little portion as part of something that was much larger than himself. And here we get to be a part of something that is eternal, that has eternal consequences to it. Something that is going to go beyond it.
What do we as human beings, we seek to leave a legacy behind? What greater legacy could you have than to have been a part of a church witness that goes on beyond you?
Well I could just say amen because that would be in keeping with the short answers that we decided would be best, but in seeking to come up with a third or fourth or fifth best answer, I would say there are a couple things that really strike home for me.
One is just being able to take things from the idea phase and implement them and see how they impact the body of Christ. That's been exciting. I think also for me personally it's exciting to be able to go from a career where maybe there were a set of rules that we were all supposed to abide by, but it wasn't necessarily followed.
And to be able to come here and have a set of rules that we really strive to follow, and that's a great encouragement and excitement for me. I like that. It's nice to be able to look forward to coming to work, so to speak.
So that's exciting. Now the easy answer is going to be working with me. And I won't say that. But you can't use this. What's the most difficult part of being an elder at BDC? You thought I was saying something else.
No, I thought it was going to be good. But why isn't it a complete answer before responding to a question? What's the most difficult part of being an elder at Bethlehem Bible Church? And that might give some of the folks an idea of how they might be praying for each of you.
You know, I think the most difficult thing and what causes me to occasionally lose a little sleep is just, it's almost like, in some ways it is, kind of like parenting, without sounding too, I hope, you know, self-inflated.
But to see people take what they should do and not do it, to know what is right and to not do that, it is, it's heartbreaking. So I, you know, to answer that, I think, you know, there are difficult circumstances that come up in people's lives.
But to counsel with them, to interact with them, to pray with them, to go through what God's Word says on particular issues, and then to see them do something else is probably the most difficult thing for me.
And especially in those respects, when you've seen it happen before, and you can pretty much read the writing on the wall and know it's going to happen in someone's life because they're going to take the wrong turn.
I would build upon what you're saying, Steve, too, is, and the Apostle Paul had great fears. His heart was broken as he wrote to different places to the Galatians. He says, you know, who has bewitched you to go away into another gospel?
He wrote to the Corinthian church and he said, I covered it in the Sunday school this morning, I fear for you. As Eve was, she, by the subtlety of Satan, Eve was led astray from the simplicity that's in Jesus Christ.
And really, as a shepherd, the greatest care that you have is for the care of the well-being of the flock. Put it in the physical realm, a shepherd has sheep, his focus is the sheep, to make sure they're fed, to make sure they have the right amount of nutrients and all, and when they go astray, to bring them back.
If they're diseased, to take care of those things. In the church, the Apostle Paul had such a heart for the people. It wasn't just, it just wasn't punching the clock, it just wasn't, I got to, you know, just some duty, but it was passion.
And that's what I like serving with these men, Mike and Steve and Louis. When we get together for meetings, some of them, I mean, that could have been probably the answer to the question, it's the grueling, you know, till 1030 at night, the elders meeting, discussing all the issues that we do, but it's necessary.
And these men know that, that we must give an account of ourselves and the work that we do in overseeing the flock. And I think probably one of the things that is very, very difficult, like Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12, and in verse 15, he says, I'm glad to be spent, to spend and be spent for you, but the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.
To pour yourself into somebody, and then for your motives to be taken like incorrectly, I mean, like you are out against people, but your heart is fully for the wellbeing, the spiritual and overall wellbeing of that person.
And yet it is as if you are their enemy when you tell them the truth. And we must press on, we must do it. But it's so difficult, humanly speaking, when it comes back and your motives are torn to shreds and misinterpreted when it's totally opposite of what you're trying to do.
You're trying to love somebody enough to help them and tell them the truth.
And I would have to agree with both of these. That's, it is so difficult and it is to a certain extent, like raising your children, where you have instructed them in the way that they should go and tried to warn them about the things that will befall them if they don't go the way that you have, that you have instructed them.
And yet, you know, they're gone in some other direction. And while you would, if you could pull them back and prevent that, you can't because they're bound and determined. And so that is hard. And it is very difficult.
It is not difficult to have someone disagree with you. I mean, that's not a problem. But to have someone question your motives, to somehow assign to you the exact opposite motivation than what you have.
All right. Thank you, man. This is for each of you as well. Tell me why you love your wives. We're supposed to have short answers. Oh, I'm not kidding. That is a question that cannot be answered in a short period of time.
I will say this. I was asked one time, did I have any clue when I asked Dallas to marry me what she would turn into? The woman of God, the powerful woman of God that she would become. And the answer to that is no.
In fact, I wasn't even considering that. I say that to my shame at the time, but I wasn't. But I will say this, men, that trust God. You can trust God to give you the wife that he wants you to have. Because it's been said before, but it sounds a little trite maybe, but I can guarantee you that if I took a poll in here, a lot of the guys in this room are praising God that he did not allow them to marry the first person he thought they thought they were in love with.
And so, you know, God has single men. God has the woman for you set aside. He knows who she is. He will lead you to her in his time. And ladies, I would say the same thing. God has your spouse all picked out, knows who it is.
I would encourage you to pray for that individual. But no, I thank God daily for the woman that he gave me.
Amen, brother. He that finds a wife finds a good thing. The proverb tells us and obtains favor of the Lord. I would say that I love my wife because she's the one that God gave me. She's a gift from God.
She's special. You hear people say, you know, that saying in the world, you know, behind every great man is a great woman. Biblically, that is correct because she is my compliment. I would not be the person that I am.
I have very rough edges. I might come across smiling and polished in some ways. And some of those things I can attribute to how the Lord has used Deb to help me to see who I really am. Things that I don't pick out myself.
And that's the whole idea. Help me. A tremendous servant of the Lord. And we've known each other since she was 15 and I was 16. And God has saved us through all of that and knit our hearts together. And I got a treasure when I got her and the Lord was good.
Hmm.
Well, I would just I would echo what my brothers have said. You better. He wants to go home tonight. You know, just a couple of things because I do think about my wife from time to time. That's good. It's a good thing.
You know, I would just say this. My wife is and I've said this to her and I've said this to my kids. She is the best person that I know. Without exception. There's nobody I'd rather have in my corner because if I didn't have her in my corner.
To use the boxing analogy, I couldn't get up off the stool. And she is. She has just grown by leaps and bounds. From somebody who is very timid and wanted to work behind the scenes to somebody who is a little more outspoken and wants to work behind the scenes.
But she's such a godly woman and just such a treasure. And she's so wise.
I'm just very, very thankful for her. OK, now maybe a little more specific. This one is just to Lewis. Lewis, how should the Christian church assess the whole Da Vinci Code hype? What would be the proper assessment we should have as a congregation to what's going on?
I would say for anything of that sort. First of all. First of all, anything that comes out like this where someone is saying we've discovered new, new information, whatever. You can count on it that it isn't new.
That it's been around before. Somebody has come up with this idea before. That's one thing that studying church history will teach you, is that all of these heresies have popped up before time. Secondly, keep in mind that anything that comes from man's mind is tainted.
Whether or not it specifically has an anti-God agenda or not. Nonetheless, we are all tainted by our fallen nature. And the fact that we live in a fallen world. And so, as the Bible says, you don't have need.
You don't have any need for men to teach you. And that doesn't mean we don't need a pastor. It means you don't need man's philosophies, man's ideas, man's thoughts on anything like this. And as far as the hype goes, that will pass like everything else.
Should you take this on, you know, mount your trustee's steed and take your lance in hand and go forth? There's no point in tilting with windmills. There's no point to it. And so, preach the gospel. You know, what is your response to this?
Preach the word. It sounds simplistic, but that's the answer. Preach the word. The Bible says, well, you know, well, Dan Brown says this or that. Well, so what? The Bible says, and on and on. That's the answer to any of these things.
Because it's the Da Vinci Code today, and it'll be something else tomorrow and something else the day after that. Because, you know, Satan constantly comes up with his counterfeits. Whatever the truth is, Satan's got something to counter that.
Which is, in some cases, actually, the Da Vinci Code is not too hard to deal with because it's so far off the track. It's the subtle ones that are more difficult to work on, where it's just a little bit of error.
You know, that's sometimes harder to combat than things that are just wacko. This whole idea of hidden text, you know, they say, well, we took the text of the Bible, we ran it through a computer, and it comes up with these messages.
Well, I'll tell you something. You can take any book and do the same thing, and you will come up with hidden messages. Because that's just, there are certain patterns to languages, and the patterns in which letters are used and all that kind of thing.
You can do that to anything, and it doesn't mean anything. You might as well take Moby Dick and find hidden messages in that. They have about the same validity. Yeah, they've done that. So, you know, don't be concerned about this.
Don't be shaken to think that, oh, something's come up that God hasn't thought about. God knew all about this. There's not a divine committee in heaven wondering what to do about the Da Vinci Code. You know, God's in control of all of this.
You know, He's sovereign. He's controlling all of it. And, you know, He can deal with it. He really can.
Can I just add a little something to that? No. Thank you. I was just going to say, it really could open up some opportunities for evangelism. Because what people are getting in the Da Vinci Code is kind of the anti-gospel.
And so it's kind of like, okay, you've seen the movie, or you've read the book, or what have you. How would you like to know the truth? So that would be kind of the approach you could take. Good.
This one's for Steve. And especially in light of you being an ex-Mormon and an ex-Mormon elder. If Mitt Romney is the Republican candidate for president in 2008, should we, the church, rally behind Mitt since he is not a Democrat, and try to get him elected in any way, shape, or form?
Our agenda is redemptive. We don't... And that's the simple fact. I mean, I could wax political here for quite some time. And to me, it's not an issue of if he runs for president, which certainly it looks like he's going to.
The question of his religion is going to come up. He's going to say, I'm a Christian. There are all kinds of things there. And it really... What's the difference between voting for Mitt Romney and voting for...
How many other presidents have we had that weren't Christians? Almost all of them. So I think it's just up to every individual. When they go into that ballot box, when you go into the ballot box, it's not a question of whether there's an R or a D next to the name.
The question is, how do you glorify God with your vote? That's always the question. Whose stances on the issues are more in keeping with what the Bible says, regardless of whether they love Christ or not.
We can't count on the government to save us. We can't count on the government, Mitt Romney or anybody else to make this a better place. Our job is not to be... Our purpose here, for being here, is not to be consumed by political things.
I find them fascinating. But we're not going to save one soul by either rallying behind Mitt Romney or carrying signs in the street saying, you know, he's part of a false cult. It really makes no difference.
Good, thank you. Dave, we alluded to this a little bit earlier, but how could the congregation best pray for the elders?
Well, the first thing would be to pray for the elders and to have it to be part of your daily concern. Because we are in need of wisdom. We're in need of direction from the Lord. And I guess ways that you could pray would be first, as I've mentioned, wisdom.
That we would receive wisdom from on high, wisdom beyond our years, wisdom to be able to make the right decisions in overseeing the flock, because we have the great responsibility to do that, to care for your souls.
And if we're in the position, God has put us in the position to teach, to lead, to guide, to direct, to protect, to warn, to discipline, to encourage. I would think that you would want men in that position that are wise and are godly and are strengthened, know the scriptures, spiritual men, grounded, founded, men standing on a good foundation, holding to the word of God.
And much of that comes by your prayers. Definitely, definitely need it. Pray for us that we would not disqualify ourselves in any way, shape, or form. The world that we live in, as Brother Steve was saying, the mission of the church is redemptive.
The early apostles, I think in Acts chapter 2, when Peter was preaching, he didn't say, clean up the world. He didn't raise the banners and pickets and all and say, make the world a better place. His message was, save yourselves from this perverse generation, from this twisted world in which we live.
The message is to flee from sin and to flee to Christ and be saved from the world and from this crooked world. And with all of the voices, with all of the temptations, with all of the attacks that come from the wicked one, we're best to attack than leadership.
Pray for us that we would not fall, that we would not fail, that we would go on, we would not disqualify ourselves in any way, shape, or form. And then for wisdom, not to fail. And then thirdly, that we would be men who under the direction of the Holy Spirit would know which way to lead, which way to go in the church.
What good decisions to make spiritually in ministry, in people's lives, the answering of questions, the counseling, that we would just be guided by the Lord in such a way that in all that we do and say, it is focused, it is not man-centered, it is God-centered, and it is done in such a way that it truly brings honor and glory to Jesus Christ.
And you're a part of that. And part of that is by praying. Okay, this one's for Louis. Thanks, Dave.
What would you say to men at the church who desire to be elders? What advice would you give them? Find something else to do. Seriously, first of all, you study the passage in 1 Timothy where the requirements for elders are laid out.
And the first reaction you should have to that is that I can never meet these requirements. And that's probably the first reaction I would look for because anyone who thinks they are qualified to be an elder, the red flags start to go up at that point.
And the second thing I would point out about that is that while it's true that we believe at this church that certain offices in the church are given to men only, namely the pastorate and the eldership, I would point out to everyone, men and women alike, there is nothing in the scripture that prevents you from trying to live your life to the elder qualification.
Ladies, you can look at that and you can say, you know, I want to conduct my life along those lines. So you could do that. I would also, and I've said this before, that if you are ever considered to be for elder and you were turned down men for whatever reason and you don't feel a sense of relief, you seriously don't understand the requirements of the job.
On the other hand, on a positive note, I would say that the Bible does encourage, they say that someone who seeks the office, you're seeking a good thing. And if God has called you to that, then there's no other job that you should have.
And it should be your desire to serve in the place that God puts you. And if that is to be an elder in the church, that is a very high calling. But it's on the same level. It's on the same level as the calling to the pastorate.
It's one of those jobs that if you're not called to it, do not attempt to carry it out. But if you are, then do everything in your power to prepare yourself for that mission when it does come. And in the early days, that will be a lot of study, a lot of being in the word to begin to prepare yourself.
Because think about what you're going to be called to do. You are going to be called to be an overseer of the spiritual welfare of a flock somewhere. And so begin to prepare yourself for that.
Thank you. Dave, how convinced are you of the sovereignty of God? How does it affect your ministry and day-to-day living? In other words, is what people call Calvinism, is that very practical?
Well, whatever you want to call it, if it's Calvinism, yes, it's very practical. I'll put it this way. I'll give you my personal testimony. When God saved my wife and I, we were in an Arminian background, which was basically an easy believism.
Don't preach repentance when you talk to people. The lordship of Christ is not important when it comes to giving the gospel to somebody. That may happen later. And when it comes to salvation, basically, you must believe.
You have faith and you must exercise that faith and really it's kind of like it's not all of God. That's basically where the background was. In about 1980-ish, my wife and I were reading different books, but basically a friend of mine said, why don't you read Romans chapter 9 and Romans chapter 11 and tell me what you think about God's hand or God's control.
Because I always had thought and went this way as a Christian that God was sovereign in creation. He is. He created who he wants and the world the way that he wants and puts the stars where he wants and the winds and the currents and all of that.
Check. I can agree with that. God is sovereign when it comes to nations, when it comes to rulers, he puts down one, he sets up another. The king's hand is in the heart of the Lord. Check. God is sovereign there.
God is sovereign when it comes to your personal life as far as where you're born, who your parents are. He knows all of that. Check. I understand that. But when it comes to being sovereign in salvation, it's a completely different story.
Folks really have a hard time with that and I struggle with that in a measure because of what I had previously been taught. But the thing was is that all that I read in Romans 9 and 11 and the different books I was looking at, I said this is what the church that I was attending is teaching as far as about the lack of the sovereignty of God, not a high view of God.
And this is what happened in my life and it was completely at odds with what the church was teaching. And I began to see in the scriptures that God is in the heavens and he does do whatever he pleases.
That when it comes to creation, when it comes to nations, when it comes to the weather, when it comes to salvation, he saves whom he will. And how is it practical? I've said this before. When I, when God gave an understanding of his supreme authority, his sovereignty that he answers to no one and that he does what he pleases whenever and however with his creation, it was almost like I was saved all over again.
And don't take it wrong, but it's, I was saved already, but it was like a whole new perspective of living opened up because I prayed differently. I evangelized differently before there was a pressure for me to get people convinced that they needed to trust Christ.
When I prayed, it was more focused on me and not the glory of God and what God was doing. When it came to ministry, it was more of a duty for me to have to do this, that, and the other thing because it was kind of like I was just, you know, I had a big burden and I had a responsibility, a complete rest that God was going to save whom he would, that God was going to do in people's lives what he would, and it would be very well.
He would make no mistakes. And the Lord used a couple of instances in Debs and in my life to bring us to the place to teach us that personally, but very practical. And should we look down upon people who do not embrace the doctrines of grace or Calvinism, how you want to put it?
Absolutely not. It's in God's timing to teach people these truths of the scripture and just be patient and love them and live before them and just share those things about how practical it is in your life.
It just helps you to see life and living and serving and ministry and worship and all in a whole different, completely different and new and refreshing and wonderful way because it is such a high view of the Lord.
Good, thanks. And then one last question, men. This one's just for Steve before we go to the Lord's table. This question was given last quarter for the Elder's Q &A and it was the only question given and we didn't answer it.
And so I can't remember the exact question, but it had something to do with the sovereignty of God and then marrying unbelievers. And I think maybe the question was maybe why would God allow someone to marry an unbeliever if he's sovereign or something along those lines.
So I can't remember, but we only got one question. I want to make sure we at least addressed it in some way, shape or form. And so Steve, would you talk about that?
Well, if we understand God's sovereignty correctly, he commands things, he orchestrates things, he designs things, but sometimes won't be hard for us to believe because I think we've all experienced this.
We act counter to the word of God. God says that we ought to not be yoked in any kind of spiritual endeavor with an unbeliever. And yet we do that. The application is often made of being unequally yoked with an unbeliever and it has to do with spiritual enterprises.
And I don't know of many enterprises that are more spiritually organized or more spiritually centered than marriage. A marriage that is not founded on Christ is going to have a lot of trouble. So the question then becomes what we began talking about.
What is the hardest thing to see in ministry? And that's for somebody to take the clear teaching of the Bible. For example, if you don't want to marry an unbeliever, don't date an unbeliever. You know, and I don't mean to sound cold about it, there are people who don't know that someone's an unbeliever.
And so they get involved with them. Maybe they even marry them. And then they find out later on that the person's not an unbeliever. What do you do then? Well, you can't divorce them unless they commit adultery.
Jesus says that in Matthew 5, Matthew 19. So then what do you do? Well, 1 Peter 3 would tell believing wives of unbelieving husbands that they need to submit to them. That they need to be obedient without a word.
That they need to, in other words, set an example for him of submission. That they need to be faithful to the word of God. Now, let's take the other side of this. Basically, I would say to anybody that, I mean, I've seen, actually seen missionary dating work, you know, where somebody has dated an unbeliever.
The unbeliever got saved and those people have gotten married. But that is such a small percentage. The overwhelming testimony would be sadness of heartache of false professions. Professions made to gain the trust and favor of the person they were dating.
And then, you know, from the point of the marriage forward, there is no life of living for Christ. And so we would counsel anyone who's thinking about marriage or even of dating. Hey, I'm thinking about dating this girl and she's never really been to church and she doesn't know anything about the Bible.
But, you know, I kind of think she's interested. Well, great. Why don't you bring her to church on Sunday and she can meet Dallas. She can meet Janet. She can meet some of the ladies here who can get to know her and teach her the word of God.
And we'll see her get saved. And, you know, a year or two from now, you guys can start dating. People don't want to hear that. I think the problem is too often, even as believers, we run our lives on our emotions and not on what the Bible says.
The Bible says clearly, don't do these things. And we do them. Why would we expect anything but bad results? How can God allow that? God allows his children to make a lot of stupid decisions. We sin often, frequently.
Some of those sins have lasting effects. Some of those sins, are we forgiven for them? Yes. But there are consequences that may last even a lifetime. So we certainly would not want that sort of thing to happen.
Trying to think if there's anything else I should address or if I've filibustered long enough. How about commanded will versus revealed? Commanded will. Yeah.
God says, do this, don't do that. But how do we know that we've married the right person, I guess, would be part of the question. And we know that we've married the right person because we've married them.
Even if we look at Romans 8 .28, God causes some things for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. He causes all things except for bad marriages to work. No, it's all things, even things that seem horrible, that seem unbearable, that seem a burden, an oppression every single day of our lives.
God is using that to shape us, to mold us into exactly what we are. Exactly the person that he wants us to be. Now, I don't know of a greater encouragement than that. Even if you may have made a mistake, even if you married the wrong person, you know, according to what you might think.
A, you've married the right person because that's exactly what God designed for you. B, God is going to use that for your good. So I don't know of any better promise than that, that God uses all things.
All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. So his commanded will would be, be separate, don't marry unbelievers. His revealed will would be, you've married that person, now obey what the Bible says with regard to your situation.
Okay, good.
Well, I thought that was good tonight. You could get to know them a little bit. I hope you were encouraged and maybe convicted at the same time.