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Father we do thank you this morning that you're a great God. To think that you are in the heavens and you do whatever you please. To think that everything you do it's designed to give you glory, to exalt your son Christ Jesus.
To think that you're zealous for your glory. To know that you manifest your glory on the earth through providence, through salvation. We're very very thankful to be able to call you our God. That you would choose us and have your son die for us.
What a privilege and we would like to respond today by your Spirit's power with gratitude, with thanksgiving, with obedience because you're a good King. In Jesus name we pray, Amen. Alright, if I design a new building, if we ever move to a new building, we need to have it so there's lights right about here because I can't even go out to restaurants anymore because it's there's nowhere to figure out.
A few Sunday mornings ago we looked at 1st Corinthians chapter 7, dating, courtship, singleness. Then there were quite a few questions and I didn't want to turn it into two sermons and so I think two Sundays ago we did a Q &A here about courtship and marriage and then Phil Johnson was here.
By the way wasn't Phil's, weren't his messages good? Those things were excellent. I'm gonna take his Sunday night message if you weren't here first of all, shame on you if you weren't here. We're gonna splice that into two and play it on no compromise because it was so good.
So today we'll kind of wrap it up. I do have a few quick introductory comments and then we'll open up for the questions and I'll try to repeat the questions for the tapes. The main thing when it comes to courtship, it's the father's involvement and if the father's involved that means the mother's involved.
Every time I say fathers like Ephesians 6, 4, fathers who need to instruct their children, who need to give them discipline and instruction, of course the mothers are involved. I think it's implicitly, implicit involvement because women are given to men as helpers.
So if you know me very well, some of you I'm looking at you for the very first time in my life, you don't know me very well but once you do get to know me and you realize something about my wife, she gives all kinds of input and by the way every single time when the kids were thrown up in the middle of the night and they came into the bedroom, they didn't come to my side of the bed unless I was the only one home, then they came to my side of the bed and they had always come to mom's side and so this has nothing to do with men are superior, this has everything to do with the Bible says men are the leaders and so they are then responsible for the spiritual standing of, not spiritual standing, but the spiritual state of the family and so my main thing that I've tried to teach the last few weeks is this, dads don't be lazy when it comes to your daughters and when it comes to your sons.
Don't be lazy because just because your kids can now put their clothes on, brush their own teeth, cut their own meat, by the way that was the day wasn't it? You go out to a restaurant and you didn't have to have to cut five kids meat and then eat your own cold food.
That was the day, I had arrived then. Just because you don't have to put desitin on a kid, you still are needing to parent them. So active parenting, you know if you have children your parenting won't end until you die.
Now it'll change and it'll move from these kids you know stay here don't move to kind of come alongside and coach and all that, but you will be a parent until you die. So I'm really after fathers being involved and being involved with sons to make sure they do the right thing regarding the lady, their own bodies, and for the women as well.
So that's my big point is fathers be involved and if you just think you can let your kids turn 14, 15, 16, 17, go spend a lot of time with an opposite sex person alone and think that your kids are mature enough to handle it, you are foolish.
You are foolish because God has designed, remember in review, God has designed most people that when they go through puberty and they have hormones there's a desire for intimacy, a desire for sex. And so first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes somebody pushing a baby carriage, first comes romance, and in the Bible then comes marriage, and then comes sex.
But romance and sex are both designed by God as wonderful things, but as long as they're done at the right time. So I have a couple of the questions that I'll start with before I take questions from, I don't know why I want to call you an audience, but a congregation.
What do we do, before I forget, if you're older, maybe you're divorced, maybe you've lost your spouse, what do we do then? I mean I started off talking about young girls and then we talked a little bit about young guys or young boys.
What do you call people anymore? I don't really believe in adolescence, that's kind of a made-up thing. Young men? That's right, okay. You know, I'm tired enough today, but I want to be funnier than I am right now.
I lose my funny edge when I'm tired, so I'm thinking I would like to be just a little funnier. I will save that for Tuesday's shows with Steve. Steve brings out the funny in me. I want to know, I want you to know that.
So if you're older and you've been divorced, let's talk about that just for a minute. Remember, here's the paradigm. Biblical divorce means you can have a biblical remarriage, right? What are the two reasons for a biblical divorce?
One, sexual immorality by your partner. Two, 1st Corinthians chapter 7, 10 to 16, the unbelieving spouse leaves. Now, the text doesn't say explicitly they leave because of your Christianity, but that's the point.
And so if you have a person who has been married and then divorced and the wife leaves or the husband leaves because of immorality or because of your Christian faith and they leave, you're supposed to let them go and then you're free to remarry.
Additionally, what if you've been divorced and remarried five times before you've been saved? Well, we're back to, we're back to if you can murder people before you're saved. I never could figure out why people could murder somebody, get saved, and then be an elder, but you couldn't be divorced as an unbeliever and then get saved and then be an elder.
I can never figure that out. I think you could do both. I think you could, I don't want you to, by the way. It's not intended for audiences at home. You know, do not attempt this. Murder, homosexuality, fornication, it doesn't matter what you've done before you're saved.
You stand in the righteousness of Christ Jesus now, right? So, if you have been divorced, these are my quick comments for you. If you've been biblically divorced as a Christian, you can biblically remarry.
And then I would probably have someone in your life who can help you with some of the issues that you've struggled with in your marriage so you can begin to work on yourself, have the Spirit of God work on you because you obviously contributed to the divorce.
I don't mean it was your fault, but if you're a sinner, you contributed to the divorce in some way, shape, or form. I could put it another way if you didn't want me to be as inflammatory. There are certain things that you did that you could work on now so that you'll be a better husband the next time or a better wife the next time.
Would that at least be fair? That part would at least be fair. So, you say to yourself, I'd like to get remarried and so maybe there's somebody at the church who could come alongside and help me with some of these things so I could work on that so I'll be a better husband or wife the next time.
If you don't have a father who is a Christian, then where do you go if you're divorced and like to get married again? I think you're looking at them, right? The church, your friends, the elders. Whenever you look up and kind of purse your lips, you're thinking, do I say it or don't I?
Okay, let me just regather my thoughts. What thoughts do you have or other questions about if you're older? Older people. We have some people here older that have never been married and we would like you to get married if you'd want to get married.
I know some of you who want to get married really, really badly. We want that to happen and we talked about it last time. It's not good to go and change churches because there's more guys at that other church.
You have more bad theology guys. How about this? Could you ever do some eHarmony? I was gonna call it eBay. Would you ever go to eBay for a spouse? Priceline for a spouse? There are different ways to meet people now and I'm fine with meeting them.
I just think early on when you meet someone, even if you're older, would you get some elders or other people involved so they can help you see things that you can't because mark it down, love is what?
Blind. Love is blind. That's why we have the family. That's why we have the church family so then we can be helped because we can't see things the way we ought to see them many times because once you have an attraction, once the hormones, once all these other things happen, it's very, very difficult and so don't you...
What would be wrong with this picture? You meet somebody. Let's say Becky meets somebody and she... Becky just bent like this and like this and she said under her breath because I'm supposed to repeat the questions.
Sweet. Say Becky meets someone and she thinks, this is the guy of my dreams but I'm afraid to introduce him. Now maybe Pastor Mike and Pastor Steve need to, you know, loosen up a little bit once in a while but we would love to see Becky get married.
Really super godly person from the master seminary with a lot of money. I would love that. We want that and you know as Christians, don't we want that for our kids too? If we say no to some person who's trying to date or court our daughter, it's not that we're wanting the worst for our kids.
We want the best for our kids but we see things in a different way and so if Becky gets to know someone and she says, you know what, I don't have a father who's a Christian and I don't have a Christian family who are older brothers who are Christians.
I better rely on the church and I want Pastor Mike and Pastor Dave and, you know, my friends. I want Peggy to be able to say and that guy is great and so early on I think younger, older people who are single, divorced, never been married, I think they just need to have the family involved.
So you need to, here's my point, you need to have your family involved before you make a bad decision. That's my point and so if you don't have a family like a dad, then you have a church family. By the way, that's why it's such a disaster to say, I think we'll just do home church and we don't really care about all this other stuff.
We're just gonna have our own little home church and it's just a disaster for lots of reasons. So if you're older and you've been divorced, I still think family involvement is what we want and then it also helps because if Becky says, I'm so desperate I need to lower my standards and all these sounds are coming out of her.
This is hypothetical. Then we help her and we say, you know what, the guy does have money. The guy is very handsome but he's not a Christian so we can't do that. So we just help one another and we want the best.
We're not no people, no sex, no marriage, no this, no that. We say, yes, God's given us the banquet table of all his blessings. If he's given you the best gift Christ, he'll give you everything else and it's just the right time and the right way.
So if you're older and you'd like to get remarried, have your family involved at the church. If you're younger, have your family involved. So that was the one thing I wanted to say about that. Anybody here who's divorced or have a question or single and have a question or widowed and have a question, is it ever right for you, the congregation, to say, we really, we have a godly person we'd like you to meet.
Is that ever okay to say? Tevye, matchmaker kind of stuff? Would that be good? Would it be good for parents to say to young people, this person over here would really be good for you to marry one day.
This is the kind of person you should marry. Would it ever be okay to plant those seeds into the mind of a child through hypnosis and other ways? Of course, you're the parents. I use this illustration.
I probably used it two weeks ago. You know, your kids got a root canal and or needs a root canal and you just say, well, there's, you know, when we grew up it was called the yellow pages, so start with the A's.
I mean, we try to help them. Don't we want to try to help our children? We do. And by the way, I don't think courtship, dating, and marriage, Kim and I talked about it yesterday, starts when the kids are 16.
It starts when the kids are little. When the little kids, you want them to think, I want to honor mom. I want to honor dad. I want to please mom. I want to please dad. I want to be involved in their life so they're going to be happy.
I've said it before, I have three daughters and one son. I hope one day I have four daughters and four sons. I want that. I want four daughters and four sons from the Master's Seminary and very rich. So I just figure one of my kids has to hit gold.
Just one, one out of four, that's all we need. So I'm just resting it alorn. Okay, let me go for the jugular. Ruth Graham Bell, she said if you could train a dog, you could train a kid. I didn't say it.
Ruth Graham Bell said it. Sitting out in the yard yesterday and the dog, our dog, we have no fence in the front yard, our dog just sat right by us and people would come and go and walk and the dog just kind of laid there because Kim and I were sitting out in the sun.
Just trying to get some sun and there the dog just laid right by us. Why did the dog not want to run away and to flee and to get out of Dodge and to get away from these people? It was too hot. Thank you.
It was too hot. The dog wanted to be with us. The dog loved us. The dog was content with us and I think, and I know my children aren't dogs, I know that, but just like with the dogs, I think if you cultivate a relationship with your kids early on, they're not going to want to flee and somehow elope and go run off with somebody and take off because they want you as part of their family.
They want to be close. They want to be able to bring the person home and say, you know what, I love this guy and, you know, that sets too far ahead, but I want him involved with the family. If it ever comes down to I've got to pick between my dad and the boy, there's a crisis mode there going on and that happens a lot.
I'm either going to pick my mom or the girl. I think, okay, your dad has changed diapers and wiped your nose and wiped your everything else for 20 years and now you've known a guy for five months and you're ready to dump mom and dad for that guy you've known for five months.
I have a word for that kind of thing and that is foolish. It is foolish, but some parents, getting back to the whole dog thing, I want my kids to want to be around. I want to have fun with my kids. Remember Danny Akin here two times ago?
What's the number one thing you can do with your kids? Have fun with your kids. Now he was exaggerating. Teach your kids about the Lord and the scriptures and all that stuff. By the way, you can't save your kids, but you can have fun with your kids.
And some of you are very fun and I think your kids want to be around you, but some of you aren't so fun and no wonder your kids want to go flee from you and flee to other people and they can find fun other ways and sexual fun other ways.
And so I say if you've got a, if you can get a dog to lay next to you out in the front yard, it was hot, but she likes it. She wants to be with us. I think the same thing can hold true for young.
People. I don't want my kids to, yes. Pam? Okay, good point. To repeat the question,.
What about if your kids aren't born again then how do we expect them to act born again? I think Proverbs is very clear that if you train up a child in the way he should go, when he's older he won't depart from it.
That has nothing to do with salvation, that has to do with this. If you train up your child to be undisciplined, when he's older he will be what? Undisciplined. If you train them to be disciplined, they'll be disciplined.
I think unbelievers, Pam, and I totally agree with you, but I would just add, unbelievers can have great relationships with their kids. Great relationships. And I think almost everything I say today could probably be used for an unbelieving dad in the sense just wisdom of, you know, it's my responsibility to guard my children's virginity, not just my daughters, but my sons too, to help them.
And if the dad's involved, then I think it's going to be helpful. But ultimately I can't change my kid and change my kid's heart, but I don't want to fall back on my kids. An unbeliever, therefore, they don't, I don't expect respect, I don't expect obedience, you're in my, I don't know if some of my kids are saved or not saved, I still expect, I do everything the exact same way.
This is what mom and dad require. Now the older they get, they get a car and all that stuff, it's, by the way, yesterday I saw somebody drive off, it's a young man, he's been dating a girl for about a year in our neighborhood, and he finally got a car.
And they drove off. And you know what I thought when they drove off, as I sit there with a dog by my side? I thought, it's a disaster. It's a disaster. Why? Because in courtship and dating, dad's involved, public people, involvement in the church and the family, here there's no dad, private, guess what, no dad, private, dating for a year yields.
Dating for will, yeah, probably, you know, these days, I mean, let's just get as frank as we can, maybe not as frank as we can, but just more frank. In the old days, men had to date girls and spend money on them and take them out to movies and romance them a little bit.
Now what do guys have to do? Now we have women as the sexual aggressors, and you just go hook up. You don't have to do anything, you don't have to spend any amount of money on girls, because they're the ones who are the aggressive ones, and I don't mean in the church, but probably them too, here too, they just, let's just hook up for fun.
No strings attached. Okay, one question,.
Let's have another question. If I like it, can I preach a sermon? Okay, great.
Point, and to recap that, let me just say it in my own way. Moms and dads, you do yourself a favor and your kids a favor if you act in a godly fashion towards one another and in a loving fashion towards one another, because then your kids look at you and say, that's what I want, and you know, it helps if you date your kids and dads take kids out and all that.
You know, in the old days, why did young men, why were they required to stand up in the presence of a lady? Why were they required to take a chair and slide it under the lady? Why were they required to stand until the ladies have all been seated?
Why were they supposed to open up a door for a lady? Does anybody know why? Well, it's good manners, but there's an underlying theme there. Chivalry, yes. Respect, yes. How about this? Young men, while you're prepubescent, you do all these things for these ladies because they're to be treated specially.
Then when your hormones start raging and you've gone past puberty and your mind or your body or your flesh wants to do all kinds of other things to ladies improperly because you're not married, you've been taught there's a certain way you respect ladies and your mind should be guarded against.
These are the external things I do because ladies are to be treated special. Now, that doesn't mean you have to open doors for ladies, but you should be teaching your sons, fathers teaching your sons, this is how we treat ladies.
This is how we treat ladies, and of course, as I've said last time and many other times, hormones aren't bad, sex isn't bad, all these other things. They're not bad unless they're before marriage. I think, Elaine, when you talked about cultivating tastes, I want Kim and I to show our kids I want to be married.
I want to be married to a Christian. I think Kim and I have more fun than almost every unbeliever that I know. The only thing that holds us back maybe is budget, right? Let's fly down to Timbuk3 or whatever, but I want our neighbors to all go, you know what?
It's good. They have a good God. I don't know if they make the connection, but their God is a really good God, and so I want to cultivate my daughters. This is gonna sound really weird, and if there's any Freudian stuff in here that you're trying to put on me, don't do it.
I think to myself, there's a lot I see in Kim that reminds me of my mom, a lot, and so I'm positive. As a young boy, I grew up thinking that's what a woman does. That's what a woman says. That's how a woman acts.
That's how she treats other people. That's how she serves. That's how she does such-and-such, and then you think, yeah, that's positive, and so then if you've got a woman who just does all the wrong things, then it's a bad picture for the kids, bad picture for the boy, because then he says that's what moms are supposed to do, and bad picture for the girls, and vice versa for the dads.
So I remember back in Grace Church, they said the best thing you can do when it comes to parenting is to have a good relationship with your spouse. The best spouses have the best relationships with their kids because it's just a spillover, and everybody falls in line.
Kim, did you have a question? How about older sons? What if you had an older son? I think you'd get involved. I want to be involved. What if your son's 3 ,000 miles away at the Masters College? What do you do?
Well, first of all, you should have been dad enough. What's the comment here? Sky. First of all, you should have made the decision, is he able to handle being 3 ,000 miles away from me? I've said it before.
I'll say it another time. Almost every parent I know, including myself, thinks their kids are more mature than they really are. That's just what we do, so we have to guard against that. If you've got an older son, if you've got a young man, you need to say to yourself, well, for instance, let's use Luke as an illustration.
It just cost me a buck, but I'll use Luke as an illustration. Luke is too young to be married. Therefore, he's too young to have romance. No romance. That means no girlfriend, no dating, no anything. Oh, you know what?
Somebody gave me some good questions, and I won't mention who they are. I think it's Steve Cooley, but let me see. Don't kids have a right to privacy? We were talking a little bit about Facebook. How far should parents go in monitoring the activities of their children, looking at phone bills, Facebook posts, emails?
I think I said this two weeks ago. I know all my kids' passwords for emails and for Facebook and for everything else, and I check regularly. As a matter of fact, I see actually what some of your kids say because some of your kids are friended, befriended.
Some of your kids have unfriended my kids, and I see, and I'll say this. If your kid says something stupid on Facebook, I'd like to know what they say not on Facebook because it requires typing and thinking.
I think you need to know all about your kids, and even if you don't check regularly, you should say, I'm going to be checking regularly, or I have the ability to check regularly, and if your kid says, no, dad, that's invading my privacy, then you've got other issues to work through.
Yes, Steve? It's probably hard to walk in and see things when they're blasting TVs. Here's a little parenting tip. Teach your kids, do what you have to do so then you can do what you'd like to do. Do what you have to do so you can do what you'd like to do.
Is TV bad? Satanic? Some of it, but in and of itself, it's just circuits and whatever it is now. It's probably not even circuits. What is it? Is it circuits? Like that one time I was on the radio and I said something about depression medicine or something.
I got a call, an email, and they wrote back, Charlie, and said, stick to what you're good at, teaching the Bible. You know nothing about medicine. Okay. Translation, you're on psych drugs. So I'm not good at circuits.
What are we talking about again? TV. Yes. Just get involved. I think Steve's right. You ever gone through your kid's backpacks? Your kid's purses? I mean, I saw this. If you've got a son and you've gone through his purse, talk to me afterwards.
Some kind of man purse, the murse. You ever gone through your kid's murse before? What level of communication is appropriate for teens of the opposite sex? Texting, phone calls, emails? I think that's case by case.
Again, I'm not trying to be any kind of legalist here. I just want you involved, and I think it's right to intervene when kids start saying us, we, we're together, and they're 15 and they're 16 because it shouldn't be us.
It should be the youth group. It should be our friends. It should be our family. Steve, do you have a comment about the texting? Oh, I would not allow that in my house. I don't know which parents would.
Would you raise your hands, please? I would never stoop so low. I have no idea what they're doing. So what's wrong with that? And, you know, Luke has said to me, well, you know, these are kind of hard topics to sometimes talk about.
I go, yeah, but I'd much rather sit and talk. And it's never been one of these deals where, all right, now we're going to go over here and have some talks. It's been lifting weights, and I've had 300 pounds on Luke's chest watching him trying to push it up and say, are you ready now, son?
No, it's just been life on life, and then these topics come up. Yeah, but I didn't call Steve because the geriatric hotline was closed. This is no Compromise Radio. It's Tuesday. Well, and so here's what we do as a church, because we're all sinners.
We all fall short, and so we help other people. And so one of the things I want to do is I don't want to micromanage your kids, but I want to help you. So if I see something and I see it on a regular basis, then I probably will say something to your kids, and I want you to say it to me.
I want you to say it to my kids. That's what we want to do, and we have older folks around, and then you can help parent. You can help. Here's what I'd really, really like. I'd really like to have our older folks in the church, as strength would allow, to be involved in a grandfatherly way, in a grandmotherly way, in the life of our kids.
And every time I talk about this, I get emotional, so I'll just try not to. My kids, I think, I don't know, for a few years, I guess it's true, no grandparents, no great-grandparents. So Kim and I, when Grandma Evie died, that's it.
There's nobody. My son has never had a grandfather. My daughters have never had a grandpa. They don't even know what a grandpa's like. And in the providence of God, that's just the way it goes. So we'll have to look to the Lord and look to other people.
But I'm sad, but there are grandpas here. There are people here to pour their life into my kids. This person's not here at the church anymore. I said to a person who was here and I had respect for, I said, would you be a grandfather to my kid?
And then the person said, yes, never called my son one time. Now, glad we have a Savior, and we just, you know, I sin, and I don't follow through, and all that stuff. I get it all. But we're the body of Christ for a reason, to help each other.
When we struggle, and when we date, and when we do this and we do that, just being involved. So I want to be involved with your kids, and I want to say hi to your kids, and I want to get to know your kids, and vice versa.
But back to the whole room thing and calling on the phone for a couple hours. If you're letting your daughter talk to some guy on the phone for two hours and we're just friends, do people even talk on the phone anymore, really?
It's all texting anyway.
Do you have other questions? That's a pretty bold question. Yeah, Charlie? Hey, you wind up not marrying him or Cory, let's say, and there's some deal breaker in the courtship. There's no guarantee you're going to make it to wedding day.
So their future spouse should be able to get into a time machine and come back and witness you and their spouse, Cory, and not be offended and not be insulted. Because you wind up not marrying, she's a sister in Christ first, or they're a brother in Christ first.
So even when you think you found the one and you're headed towards the marriage date, they could get killed. A drunk driver could kill them, right? Or you may not wind up marrying this person. So you have to treat it like the deal's off until the moment the ring goes on your finger.
And then if it doesn't pan out, your heart isn't ripped out of your chest because you've given yourself away and become one flesh. Or even just some of your folks have to become one person. You cautiously approach the wedding date.
You don't do it correctly.
Well, since I don't have perfect memory to repeat the question and the comment, let me just say this, and I think this will work for the tape. I think Josh Harris' book, Kiss the Girl. Hello, I kiss the...no, not I kiss the...no, not that one.
The next one, Boy Meets Girl. Is that it? Boy Meets Girl. I like what he says. By the way, that would be a good book for you to read. I Kiss Dating Goodbye, Passion and Purity by Elizabeth Elliott. Those would be several good books.
Doug Wilson's got a good one on reforming marriage or courtship and dating or something. I like it that he said, Charlie, in churches when people are courting properly, biblically, the father's involved, the mother's involved, the families are involved, the couple then breaks up.
The rest of the church is prone to say, oh, that's too bad. When Josh Harris said, no, it's not too bad because we want what's best for the kingdom. We want the Lord's will, and now we realize we're only going to date with the intention of getting married.
Now we realize married is an option. You're going to marry someone else in the church. I'm going to marry someone else in the church. I mean universal church, and we didn't compromise one another. We're still both virgins.
You know what happens is when all the sleazy stuff goes on with people in the church and then there's a breakup, then people leave the church. Why? Because who can go back and all that stuff? But if both people have remained virgins and they haven't done things that they ought not to have done, then they break up and you go, you know what?
I want what's best for you. I can't rob you of what your husband will own one day, and you'll own him. And so I think that's what we would try to do is love, loving your neighbor so much so that it's like, I think you said to me the other day, the future spouse of the girl you're courting, because you didn't know you were going to break up yet, should be able to be in the car with you on every date or every outing or every courting.
Let me say this. We're Calvinists. We believe in the doctrines of grace. We believe in the sovereignty of God. We're not pragmatists. So then you say, well, let's just, what does the church do? The church says, we preach the gospel and God saves through the preaching of the word.
Do I have to have people come up for the altar call? Do I have to have mood music? Can you imagine if we did that? I'd have Ferdy stand by the door. Nobody gets out of this place until five people have come up.
Jeffrey's is over there. Ferdy is there. Jack Kurtz is over there. I mean, everybody's getting saved today, one way or the other. But I don't have to manipulate all that. I preach the word and we trust the sovereign God.
So then why do we do all the dating and sneaking and courtship and all these other kind of things in Arminian pragmatic ways? We just trust in the Lord that he'll work it out. And you say, well, I've heard somebody say this in the last few weeks.
If I, as a young person, do what my parents say I should do, that's similar to what Pastor Mike says, I will never get married. I will never get married. It's impossible. I'm going to move off to college, and then how's my dad going to be involved in relationships with girls when I'm off in college or I'm off over here?
I'm off in the army. You know what it is? That's just all rebel heart. That's the rebel heart that says, you know what? This is the way that's obviously the wisest way, and even if it's not the wisest, it's my parents' way.
This is what my parents want me to do. Therefore, I'll just submit, and you're going to be very happy because rebellious people aren't happy. What about, I had another question I did not want to forget.
If a family doesn't approve of a pending marriage, should they attend? Should the father give the daughter away? Should they pay for the dress, et cetera? Here's what I'll say. I hope my three daughters honor Kim and I, but if I do not approve of the young man who's going to marry my daughter, I will not be at the wedding.
I will not give my blessing. I can't believe when people say, well, I don't really like the guy. He doesn't really like me. But then I'll walk my daughter down the aisle like I'm forced. It's my kids are now parenting me, and I'm not going to do that.
I'm willing to say, for as long as you want to rebel and act like I'm not your dad, then you get no dad. And that means I won't be at your wedding. I won't see your grandkids. You won't be here at Christmas.
You won't be here at Thanksgiving. You won't be here at any Hallmark holiday. As long as you want to live like a rebel, then the way of the transgressor is hard. I'll be praying for you. But what do we do?
We cave in. I'm not going to say, when I say who gives this woman to be married to this man, I'm not going to say I do if I don't. Just show up and give my daughter away. I will not do that. And so I think we need to stand firm that if we're not approving of the spouse to be, then we're not approving of the spouse to be, and then we're not going to be at the wedding, and we're not going to be here, and we're not going to be there.
And then we've got the whole Disney thing feeding, well, it's just the two of us, and all the pop music people, and Alicia Keys, and all these others. You know what? It's just the two of us. We don't care what everybody says.
How could love so right turn out to be so wrong? No, it's the other way around. Love so, I don't know, that's like the 70s. So anyway, I'm not going to pay for the wedding, and I'm not going to be here because I will approve.
I mean, I'm just looking at Dave Jeffries. Well, you know, I don't really like this Thompson guy and all that stuff, but I'll walk Naomi down the aisle anyway. I mean, that's Naomi leading. Naomi's got a big smile.
By the way, we are so glad you're back, at least for another. So the answer to that question is I will not be involved. I hope it doesn't get to that point. And again, as Pam said, you can't make unbelievers act like believers, but you can still act like a parent to an unbeliever always.
You can always parent. You can't save your kids, but you can do the right thing and not be a pragmatist. Charlie. If you conclude that your child's not a believer, then I'll do my very best to try to help them stay pure before they get married and marry the right person.
But we'll have to judge it differently, and I'm trying to repeat some of the things for the question. What if I have an unbelieving 26-year-old who wants to get married? I would do the wedding if I was asked.
I mean, I usually don't like to do unbelievers' weddings. But I'd probably do my own kids. Yes, if I liked him. If he still won me over and I could figure out, you know what, he can provide for my daughter.
He's not a junkie. What did you say? We'll go shooting together. Deb Jeffries came up to me today and showed me her targets from her 45 shooting over the weekend. That was right before this thing today.
I didn't know if it had ramifications with Candace or something. I don't know, but she's right in my line of fire, right there. This is about the distance that you would shoot your Smith Wesson, your 1911.
So I would, first of all, I would attend a wedding of an unbeliever as a parishioner. I would do that. That would be fine. Because it's a celebration. It's a common grace of God. God designed weddings, and whether people like it or not, it's a picture of Christ in the church, and so I would attend.
If I had an older daughter who was lost, and there was an older, there was a man who was an unbeliever that I didn't approve of, would I give her away? And the answer would be no. Because I'm going to be giving my daughter away to this man with my full approval.
That symbolism to me means something. And so, yes, I affirm and I confirm, and she's no longer under my headship. I'm glad to get her out of the house and have you responsible for her. And I transfer her over.
But I would say, you know, honey, he's a louse. And I know you're not a Christian, and now you live together for a year, and now you want the paperwork done. He's a louse. Mom and Dad love you and will always love you, but, you know, we can't show up for the louse wedding.
I mean, of course, I'd say it differently than that, but I wouldn't do it. I still think you can help your unbelieving kids pick a good spouse who pays the bills. I mean, you just look at some of the generation in World War II about faithful duty, courage, honor.
I'm saying from an unbelieving perspective, but still there are people like that whose yes means yes and no means no. They don't cheat on their taxes. They're moralistic. If I'm going to have an unbelieving daughter who gets married, I want to have her marry a moralist, not a licentious person.
So I can still try to help her in that area, because even though she's saved, I still am responsible for her best. And then if she met a believing man, I would say, believing man, you can't marry my daughter because she's not a Christian.
You can't do it. Okay, just about a few more. Yeah. Well, the question is, what's the age range to get married? Sometimes people jump to the Bible to say, well, look, they were getting married at 13 or 15, and look at the Virgin Mary and all these kind of other things.
Pretty much, you know what, it is Sunday school, so why don't you turn to Hebrews 12. And so if this was a sermon, you should walk out, because I haven't opened the Bible, although I've quoted a few verses.
Hebrews 12, Bethlehem Bible Church. So this is a different kind of Sunday school than we're normally having, but I just wanted to do a pastoral Q &A, so we weren't rushing through this very important topic.
There's not much in the Bible about parenting. Proverbs is the most we get, but in the New Testament epistles, there's not a whole lot about parenting. And if you go to Hebrews 12, let's see what verse am I looking for.
Let's just hit verse 5, and have you forgotten the exhortation, Hebrews 12, 5, that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Now here we go. Verse 9. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of Spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time.
Here's four key English words. As it seemed best. As it seemed best. As it seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. And so here's what I'll say quickly, Mark.
Since the Bible doesn't give us a cookbook answer to that question, the Bible then gives wisdom to the father, and then it's the father's choice. In formation, given by the mother, you're always a team, she helps, but it's the father's wisdom to say, you know what, you're not ready to be married.
Your body may be ready for sex, your hormones might be ready for romance, but you're not ready to care for a family. You can't even pick up the trash at the house. You can't even do your chores, and now you want to have a family?
And so if you're not ready to provide, I don't think you're ready to marry for. Marry to. And so I'd say it's up to the father. Because we discipline the seems best for us. Some parenting, non-negotiable.
Instruct. Spank. Advise. Pour into. Those are non-negotiable. Then everything else, it's the wisdom. Seem best to you. Well, seem best to me. My son wasn't ready at 18, but my daughter was ready at 21.
Or whatever we say, it's you. But so if somebody comes courting along and they say, you know what, I'd like to go out with your daughter, you say, you know what, my daughter's not ready yet. And then you work with the daughter then to help her get ready.
Somebody comes along for the son, my son's not ready yet. He says to you, Dad, I'd like to ask this girl out. Son, you're not ready yet. But then it has to be more than that. We just can't say you're not ready without helping them get ready.
So it's back to wisdom, what you think. And so you are the king of the house. You are the king of the castle. You are the father. And the thing about it is with leadership, we shouldn't stomp around saying I'm the leader.
We never even have to prove our leadership. We want to be faithful leaders, but we don't have to prove what the Bible already says, that you're the leader. And so good leaders get insight from their spouse, and they want the best for the kids.
And if your kid is ready as a daughter or a son at 18 to get married, then that would be up to you. I think 18's too young. For most people that I've met, I don't think they're ready at 18. But just like with baptism, we don't have a number.
Because once you have a number, then you're sunk. Does that answer the question? I thought about it just the other day. If you're not married today and you'd like to be married, think about all the stuff that had to happen to have your parents get together, to be married and then to have kids.
The providential hand of God. Charismatics and mystics want to look ahead and say, see the signs of God up there? Sign ahead. We have been trained to look back in time and say, isn't God's hand perfect putting everything together?
If you're supposed to get married, you're going to get married. How about that? When I was younger, I'd think, what's my wife doing right now? I'm not even married, but she's out there someplace. My mother and father get married when I think my dad was 25.
My mother was 20. And my dad wasn't faithful. They broke up. My mom goes on a double date after she's divorced in a car. And she was sitting in the front seat, but she didn't really want to sit by the guy in the front seat.
So she said, let's, you know, they stopped off at a stop someplace. And so she switched to the back seat. And now the guy in the back seat is trying to make the moves on my mom. Boy, I would have loved to have been there.
Making the moves on my mom. She didn't like that either. So she took her fake fur coat and put it up over her head, two o 'clock in the morning, and then pretended to go to sleep. Pretended, not be tended.
Let's play pretend. Car accident. The lady in the front seat killed immediately. Glass flies all over. And everybody is hurt badly, except my mother, who only had one shard of glass come through and cut her eye because she had the thing over her head.
A year later, my mom and dad see each other at a party. I get conceived. Four months later, they remarry until dad dies 30 years later. And I look back at that and I go, who could design that? I had, like it or not, church, but I had to be born.
I had to be your pastor. I had to have four kids. I gladly had my wife. But it all had to happen. I'm going to talk about this in my sermon today. We are not just the sovereignty of God believers and who goes to heaven and who doesn't, but in everything the sermon is going to be, every aspect is under the sovereign control of life.
And when you get to heaven, part of praising Jesus is to be able to praise Him as you maybe have a review of your life. How could all that get together so perfectly? So if you're not married, be faithful to live in light of grace.
And I think the Heavenly Father that you've entrusted your soul to will be able to give you a wife, be able to give you a husband, be able to give you kids. And if He doesn't give you any of those and you get to heaven, you'll say, you know what?
It was better. You did the right thing, God. And so I think worriers and anxious people try to push God's agenda and then there's trouble. But those that rest in the Lord and be still and know that I am the Lord, Psalm 46, and do what they need to do, 1 Corinthians 7 will say, serve if you're single, then the Lord will take care of all those other things.
1 Peter chapter 5 says, it matters to God about you. That's a pretty amazing thought. So if you have other questions about courtship and dating and marriage and all those things, the main goal is you want other people involved and dads, be a dad.
Moms, be a mom. Moms and dads, be on the same page. Moms, if you're not on the same page as with dad, then submit to the father and then when the dad makes a bad decision, and God's gonna judge him, duck.
And so that's all I have to say. Let's just pray. Thank you, Father, for being such a good father. I think that you do everything rightly. You made all kinds of bad decisions as a father, yet, God, you have not made one bad decision.
Always with your glory in mind, always with our best in mind. I pray for the parents here, that you'd help them to parent. I pray for the young people who would love to get married one day, have a boyfriend, have a girlfriend, leading to marriage.
I pray that you'd help them to submit to their parents. I pray for those who have been recently divorced or will get divorced. I pray that you'd give them contentment. I pray that you'd give them their dreams to get married again.
I pray for some of those who are widows and widowers. Father, we just entrust people to you because you do the right thing. And Father, I pray that you'd protect Bethlehem Bible Church from scandals, like scandals with our kids, as they get involved when they ought not to.
And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.