Tape 4 - Christian Reflections from the Jewish Family

Let me line you out one. I'll be glad to map you out one that's really not too expensive and to go down the Florida Keys and just enjoy the Keys for a bit. It's better than going to Galveston, I'll assure you.

And so if you want one, I'll map you out one too. It'll be all right. It won't matter and I'm glad you're here. I want to share with you a few thoughts and I'm hoping that we'll get to the point where tomorrow evening I have something very specific that I want to get into and so it depends on how far we get along this evening as to whether I'll be able to approach that matter or not.

And so I want to talk to you just briefly and you know I recognize that all of the things we're talking about you already know and we haven't touched on any new ground for sure and but sometimes I think it's good just kind of replow and sometimes it's good to kind of bring the furrows open and see what's lurking down in there and replant, reseed, re-sow so that the harvest will be what it needs to be.

And sometimes we need to just detect something here and there because none of us are perfect. At least I suspect most of y 'all are not. And so you know there's always something to work on in life. There just is.

And the beautiful thing about this is that God is a God of beginning again. He is a God of beginning again. So whatever difficulty we have in our life there's always a solution to it and not only is there a solution there is a better tomorrow and each day we ought to be better and we ought to be more successful than we were the day before.

But unless we are attempting to grow and applying ourselves in just very strong effort we're just not going to grow. Christian growth is not automatic and growth in life and families is not automatic.

And husband and wife getting along one another and growing together is not automatic. Parents getting along with their young people is not automatic and young people along with parents it takes effort.

It takes time. It takes a strenuous effort and it takes a lot of understanding. Now I want to share a thought or two with you about the word esteem. Respect. Esteem. And husband and wife according to Jewish law have to esteem each other regardless of their love.

Whether they think they love one another or not if they are married they have to respect one another. They may not agree and there may be some problems. They may even be in quote therapy with somebody.

They may be talking someone about their problems but they have to respect one another according to law. This is necessary. At times the reason is at times love as well as hate will lead a person to a distortion of their behavior if they aren't very careful.

Just because we love somebody is no assurance that our behavior may not become distorted at times. And so it is not all that sure. And one of the things is if you ever see a husband, now I'm not talking about divorce necessarily, but if you ever see a husband and wife who are obviously deeply in love but they consider themselves above the obligations of mutual respect and they don't pay any attention to or even mock the customary rules of common courtesy be concerned about that relationship.

Anytime a man says he loves his wife and he can't even open the door of the car for her I question his love. I question his love. Any man that lets his wife go out in a restaurant and sit under the table without holding her chair because you see you'll do that for other women.

You'll do it for the secretary. You'll do it for the woman that comes in now the grocery store I've seen it. I've seen men in our church. I've seen, yeah deacons, yeah pastors and preachers, yeah I've seen them.

God forbid I have. Seen them come out of a store and you'll see them run and open that door and some little girl comes out with the groceries and here she comes. And all of a sudden where's he going? He's done gone and the door's coming closed.

Here's his wife coming with two big bags and that door's about to catch her and she squeezes through and just makes it. Just gets through the door. All I gotta do, I'd punch him too, all I gotta do is go in the parking lot of any church and I will find more disregards for just common courtesies.

It isn't because we don't care. It is simply because we are caught up in something. Now what this person thinks is love might only be self-love. It may not be love at all. It may be self-love. It may be self-interest.

What they think is love may be self-love and the outburst of a sensual instinct. Such love without courtesy, it does this. It produces impatience. It produces tension and the eventual breakdown of a harmonious relationship because gentlemen, say what you will, that wife knows you didn't open that door and about the first time she sees you do it for someone else, her mind registers and she clicks it up out of that little recall and that little three by five card in her brain goes boom.

It jumps up and it says October 5th, 1986, he opened the door for so and so and he didn't open the door for me and she just registers that one in her mind. That's one and then she can just give you all kinds of things like that's amazing.

A supermarket is a great place. Go to the grocery store. That's a good place to see it. You can watch them. You know, they'll be going down the aisle. All of a sudden, they'll stop and say, excuse me, excuse me.

Boy, they'll come pushing. Just let them go right on through and here's his wife. She's walking along and she stops and he'll hit her with a card. You know, wow, he's not paying attention. He's watching those other girls.

He's watching those other ladies. He's making sure they have clear way, boy. He'll just go out of his way. Oh, can I help you with that? Let me get that for you and here's his wife trying to reach something off the top shelf.

You know, she can't get it but he's done loaded this other card up with this other lady. Now, that may be a slight exaggeration but it's true. The principle of it is true. Time and time. Now, I know what some of you men are thinking.

You say, brother, you ain't talking about me because I don't go in those stores. I don't go in them. That's another problem within itself we could discuss, you know. Most women are afraid to ask her husband to go to the store.

There's no doubt. What did he come back with, you know? He doesn't understand all those things. Complete freedom of behavior as they call it between a husband and a wife is the result of self-love, never love.

A complete freedom of behavior where either can just do whatever they want is never true love. It is always self-love because a person who really loves another person isn't even concerned about the freedom of their behavior.

They are wanting to please that other individual. They're wanting to give to that other person. A person dominated by self-love grows very impatient when the needs of other people intrude upon their needs.

They grow impatient. That's a good sign of self-love. Impatience. They become resentful when the fulfillment of their needs imposes some inconvenience or requires some effort on their part which is not rewarded with personal pleasure.

They just don't want to get involved in it if it doesn't give them personal pleasure. I've said this before but may I repeat myself. You know that I would suspect that 85 to 90 percent of everything you and I do is geared for personal pleasure.

Now we talk about loving and giving to one another but just check out your life and check just how many hours of your day you spend doing something for someone else. Most of our lives are geared for that which brings us some kind of personal pleasure and I'm not saying personal pleasure necessarily is wrong.

I'm just saying that many times that becomes our total motivation in our life and in our marriages and so what happens when a person gets their little needs intruded upon or they get impatient the next thing is they explode with anger.

They explode with anger. Esteem is a hidden treasure. Jewish people say when found it can support an entire home. It is a well whose clear waters bring eternal blessings into the home. Respect one for another.

We didn't say this we didn't say agree all the time. Yeah you can disagree but still have respect. You can have a misunderstanding and still have respect. You can have respect for your children. You can have respect for your young people and they can have it for parents and parents certainly can have it one for another and it does not spring up spontaneously.

It does not automatically happen. It is a plant that you plant within your home and it requires cultivation. It requires constant effort to keep the weeds of life from choking it out and keeping it very prevalent in the life and it takes constant tending to keep its roots growing so that it will take hold in their life and sort of become the habit of the home to have respect one for another.

So Jewish people have two rules and I'll give you those two rules about esteem. Say every word do every deed that is a mark of respect both for the sayer and the one to whom it is said. Now you can paraphrase that.

Say every word do every deed that is a mark of respect both for the sayer and the one to whom it is said the doer and the recipient. Avoid any word any act in your home which is disrespectful to the sayer and the one to whom it is said or the doer and the recipient.

So that's very basic isn't it? Very basic. Everything we say to one another everything we do to one another we ought to consider the respect that is due to the person not only from the one saying it or doing it but the one who's going to be the recipient of those actions.

The second rule is every husband ought to think of himself as having married a princess and he ought to treat her accordingly and respect will begin to enhance that love. Remember that you married a queen.

You married the queen of your home the queen of your life and she is to be treated accordingly with respect. The essence of esteem is recognition of the value of the individual esteemed. That's the very essence of esteem.

How much value is your wife to you? How much value is your teenager to you? How much value is your mother and dad to you? Your parents to you? How much value is your husband to you? We never really realize the value of one to another until we lose them or we do it away don't we?

We do it away but is it not true that when we lose someone we love we wish to God for a thousand opportunities that were wasted and let go that we just had them again whereby we could express that true love that we really now realize is in our heart but it's too late.

Why not do it now? Why not learn to do it now and incorporate it in our lives at the present time? So the essence of esteem is recognition of the value of the person esteemed and the mark of esteem is subordination.

It's extremely difficult for men. This is a hard one for men to subordinate themselves to someone else but a person who wishes to show honor, respect and esteem for another individual willingly subordinates himself to that person.

We say become a servant in heart. Just have a servant spirit, a servant's heart. Be willing to expend all that you are for another person. If you really respect and honor that person we will do so. Well but if I do that then I don't get this, that's self-love.

What if I do this? Listen, you don't worry about the cost, you don't worry about the price, you don't worry about as long as it's positive, it's godly, it's spiritual, it's right, you just do it because you honor them and you love them and you respect them and that is esteem and that's the mark of esteem and a husband who respects his wife will never lead her to do anything out of keeping with the esteem he wishes her to be held in and he will control his self-love in his relationship to his wife.

He will push himself aside as we say Christ is to a man is to the woman as Christ is to the church. Totally self-sacrificing and give it all and simply Jewish law says where there is esteem there will always be peace.

Where there is respect there'll be peace because if respect is there you will never argue with that person you respect. You just don't. You may disagree, you may have a discussion but you won't get angry and you won't argue.

Arguments come from anger most of the time. They're not discussions. There is a difference between a discussion and there's a difference between having a disagreement and there is an argument. An argument somebody's trying to win something and then both sides lose in an argument.

So what are we saying? We're saying two things are faithfulness and devotion. Faithfulness and devotion are like two great lights that illuminate and purify the body and when these lights do not shine the body is like a dark and coarse sphere and Jewish law says that physical cohabitation sexual intercourse is permissible only when the hearts of a couple are united as one.

Only when they are thinking as one. Only when that respect and honor is there is it possible to be blessed by God in that and it says without that union of heart without that mutual respect without that mutual honoring the act of cohabitation or the act of sexual intercourse is in no way superior to the coupling of animals.

Just because we are human does not make it so. It is no more than a mere animal doing exactly the same thing because it desecrates man's holiness. It desecrates the holiness of the marriage covenant and it desecrates the holiness of God who himself sanctifies the marriage covenant if there is not honor and respect and love for that individual that we are with at that particular time.

The creator has designed it for a father a mother for a husband and a wife it is a natural thing for them to be more faithful to each other than anyone else on earth including their parents. She is to leave her parents and cleave to her husband and yet I find wives and I find husbands who in little ways without realizing it many times without understanding what they are doing subconsciously and sometimes overtly will show more faithfulness to an organization a club a group than they will to their wife or their husband or their children.

I find young people are extremely guilty of showing more allegiance to some kid at school than they will their parents who gives them life. Young people you know it cost your parents 145 ,000 dollars to get you through four years of college from birth to college.

Are you worth 145 ,000? Yeah baby I'm worth it yeah I know. Self-love tells you that you are but if you put you on a scale you're worth about 395 chemically speaking. So what are we saying? We're saying esteem respect is something that is necessary in a home if it is to have peace if it's to have the blessings and the glory of the Lord.

The loyalty of a husband and wife to each other fills their life completely and there's no aspect of human life which the loyalty of a marriage does not encompass. It touches everything in that life and we need to make it so and so I want to share a thought with you about being content in the situation that you find yourself in.

In a general sense all men pursue wealth. Now we say well no we don't we're Christians we're not we're not in this we're not looking for money we're not looking for all men pursue wealth one degree or another.

All do not achieve it. Of those who do only a very few enjoy their wealth. For most people the pursuit of riches never ceases. It is a lifelong thing. They are constantly searching for the riches of life and always avid for money.

They waste their life in the pursuit of that which many times is unattainable and they never experience true joy as we know it in the scripture. Now we can sit in church and we talk about money doesn't satisfy and the love of money is the root of all these.

We can talk about all those things but let's get real honest and faithful to ourselves tonight. Most of us are caught up in the same rat race that everybody else is caught up in even though we criticize them.

We want money. Face it and get honest about it. Yeah you do and if you don't then go into your bank account just side it all over to the church and just say here put this in the building fund I don't need this stuff.

Tell your boss you'll work for nothing. Now you see he said well we've got to live and gotta live. Yeah you start rationalizing and just keep on carrying it out and that's exactly the way everybody else says.

I'm not saying money's bad. What I am saying is that we are in the same rat race as most other people and we still get out of balance with it and so what happens is whenever we come to really deal with it you'll find that even Christians many times in that pursuit of cash, in that pursuit of guilt, in that pursuit of gold what they do is they turn unethical and they begin to do little things to attain that which is out here.

Now in the pursuit of money many times husbands, fathers throw away the most important thing in their home. They throw away the simple pleasures of life. He rises early and he returns late and cheats himself of precious hours of sleep number one.

Now I'm not saying you can't get up early and go to work and work out. I'm not saying you can't work overtime. That's not what I'm saying at all but I find some people who are out there doing those things spinning their wheels and not going anywhere really they're making this if they do or don't.

The boss doesn't care. He said I don't care if you work 50 hours, if you work 40 hours just do the job. Whatever it takes. It takes you 45, it takes you 55. If you don't have to do but 30 next week that's fine whatever but you find a guy who thinks he's going to make a little point too so he'll go ahead and work 70 or 80 and here's the wife and kids they sitting home and then he comes in and he's got to crawl in bed and he's so tired and sleepy and he never catches up and the body begins to deteriorate and next thing you know he's got ulcers and everything else.

He's tense, he's worried, and he's fearful all the time. His behavior evokes resentment, enmity, and strife. Nobody can get along with him because he's caught on that merry-go-round of attaining wealth and attaining riches.

The home he builds is not one God desires. In Psalm 127 except the Lord build a house by labor and vain that would build it. If God gives money that's wonderful. If God gives nine homes and eight swimming pools and four cars that's wonderful but if you and I have a motive that we're going to get it then that's wrong and God isn't building that kind of a home.

What kind of a house does God build? Psalm 128, 1. Blessed is everyone, happy is everyone, delighted is everyone that fears the Lord that walks in his ways. The ways of God are righteousness, justice, happiness, and well-being.

Verse 2 of Psalm 128 tells you how you achieve it. When thou eatest the labor of thy hands, happy shalt thou be in this world. Do your job and do it well. You work for a man, you give him the hours he requires of you to do it, you do it well, and God says he'll bless that.

He blesses honest labor. Yes he does. But not all men achieve this wealth they desire. But let me say this, all men are capable of achieving true wealth according to scripture. All men are there are capable of achieving true wealth and I'm well aware that there are those who go around today and I don't necessarily want to get into it but it doesn't bother me that much get into it that are going around and they're teaching that God wants everybody prosperous.

If that is true the apostle Paul missed the boat. If that is true every one of the apostles and every one of those who followed the apostles and most of those godly christian people who live for the first 300 years of christianity missed the boat.

If that is true John Wesley missed the boat. If that is true John Huss missed the boat. If that's true John Calvin missed the boat. If that's true Roger Williams missed the boat. If that's true you can find the leaders of every great christian movement in history including Martin Luther the father of protestant reformation all of them missed the boat if God wants everybody prosperous at all times.

But you see if I can convince you of that and say now God will use you to make me prosperous and he'll use somebody else to make you prosperous then you're going to pour it into me. If you believe me and then you'll come up soon later you'll say well now where's mine coming from?

I said well God will lead them to you and I hear it all the time. Just had a big convention in Fort Worth not too long ago and they took up three million bucks by a man who teaches exactly that and yet most of those people sitting out there having trouble meeting their bills.

You can't find that anywhere in the word of God if you keep scripture in their context. It violates the principles of God. Nowhere does God teach such a thing and yet they take one scripture here and play with it and take them out of context and I understand that but that isn't what God tells me.

True wealth comes from that which brings joy into the heart and it's based upon the righteousness of God. It's not based upon criticism. It's not based upon self-righteousness. It's not based upon any of those things.

It's based on the righteousness of the Lord and even a new couple just a young couple can begin their home starting out in the way that God wants them to go in the sense of finding true wealth because in Jewish life they say the beginning of that marriage sets the course.

That marriage will follow all of its days and that's why there's a lot of preparation. That's why there's a lot of teaching. Now according to our law that our Jewish thinking the Jewish mind are two paths that one can go.

Two paths that one can follow in their marriage. The first path is they can take the path that most people take which is that of eyes closed and it brings about an enslavement of body and soul. Enslavement physically and enslavement of soul.

Soul to me is the seat of the mind will and emotions. Plays on the mind deals with the will and controls the emotions and most people deal with God and Christianity based upon an emotional response not upon a spiritual response and they don't know the difference between the spiritual and the soulish.

The second path is they can take a path that is chosen which is chosen usually by people of wisdom and sensibility and that brings freedom of thought and freedom of deed. Let me explain the first choice.

Take the first path. Those who choose that path simply act in imitation of their neighbors or their acquaintances the people they know. They imitate what other people have done or other people do. They go read a book.

I've shared this with you and I hear it everywhere I go. People come up constantly. Have you read this book? Have you read that book? Have you read this book? And have you read that book? Have you read this?

And everybody's writing books because there's a lot of money in books and I'm not opposed to books. But dear people can you imagine what the early Christians did? They didn't have all those books. They had the book.

Now I'm not opposed to reading books but if you spend as much time in his bible as you do all these other books and all these other courses you won't have a problem. The book is the key but everybody wants a quick solution.

Everybody wants a you know a quick fix. That's kind of the generation that we live in and so it is not their own path. It is not that unique direction that God wants them to take. It is not that one chosen simply because it suits them and meets their particular needs.

It's an imitative life and it's an imitation of their neighbors and their friends and it's marked by all kinds of effort but very little pleasure of life. And by pleasure of life I'm not talking pleasure of things.

Pleasure of life. All kinds of effort. Just work, work, work, work and it's a routine. It's a rut that they get in and they just continually progress along that way. They are too fatigued, too tired, too beaten down to engage themselves in creative activities.

When I asked people I said do you have a family night in your home? They say no. I say man I'm just too tired. I just can't sit down and figure out something new to do every week. Too fatigued, too tired, too beaten down to use creative activity in their home and in their life with their families and their children with their husbands and with wives and so other.

And so real happiness and serenity in God is beyond them. They never reach it. They never attain. It's just beyond them at all times. They can come and rededicate their life but the price is high and it just stays a little beyond and always reaching out but never able to get that thing.

And it affects the children obviously. Those who take this path, this first path, find their children are denied genuine true wealth. What is true wealth according to a child? A car. You go to most high schools and you'll find young people today driving better cars than most adults do.

I saw a little boy down there right there. There's a high school. Arlington Heights High School is about two blocks from my office in Fort Worth. And there's a little place I whip in there every once in a while and get some coffee.

And a lot of kids come down there prior to school and they'll get snacks and sweets and all that stuff and chewing gum bottle going on. Hang around cold drinks and stuff them in there and blah and all that stuff.

And then off they go to school. And it's amazing what I see them drive up in. This one kid drove up in there and he had a truck and it had everything on it. I mean that pickup truck had everything on it.

And I kept telling him, I said, what'd you pay for that thing? What'd that thing cost you? And here's a kid, 16 years of age, just got clearance to drive by himself. You know, he took the course and just got to where he could drive by himself.

And that little boy told me his dad paid $45 ,000 for that truck. Now when you saw it, you could believe it. It had everything, I mean it had everything but a cafeteria on that thing. He had to get a ladder to climb up in.

It had those giant wheels, you know. You had to stand and look up at it. He don't try to see what's up there. It was like an airplane cockpit you're looking at thing. And we try to convince these kids that that is really true wealth.

But it isn't. And you know it isn't and I know it isn't. But they don't know it isn't because that's what they have had around them and that's what they see. But what is true wealth? According to the Jewish mind, it is a father's loving kindness and a mother's loving concern.

It's that father interested in them and it's that mother's concern for them. And both parents showing realistic interest and active interest in the lives of those young people. And these young people who don't have that and follow the first path to their families, they grow up poor and what really matters they don't have the discipline, they don't have the guidance of their parents and there is no substitute for discipline and guidance of parents in the lives of young people.

Young people know what they want. Young people know what they like. Young people have no way of knowing what they need. That's why God gives them parents. They have no way of knowing what they need. There are two critical ages with youth.

One is six years of age, another is 16. At six years of age, they have every question known to man. At 16, they have every answer to every problem. That's just the way it is. And I hear all the time, you know, I like to get in conversations with them and they'll start hitting me all this, well, I said, let me ask you a question.

Have you ever been out of the state of Texas? Well, no. Well, I mean, have you ever traveled around the world? No. Have you ever gone to Canada? No. You ever flown an airplane? No. You ever been out on a cruise?

No. You ever been in the military? No. Well, how do you get all these answers to all these things? Where'd you get them from? Well, that's where I think about it, you know. Well, that sounds good and they're entitled to what they think, but it's an emotional intellectualism and it's not a rational intellectualism.

It's based upon what they feel, what they feel. And what you feel will fool you sometime, sometime. And so when these children reach maturity, what do they do? They immediately fall into the same vortex that their parents are in and the cycle begins to repeat itself.

And they will do the same thing to their children and their children will lack discipline. Their children will lack guidance and their children will lack that loving kindness. And their children will lack that same concern.

And parents will say, well, I never could do anything with them. And we'll rationalize it away. But there's a second path that you and I will know about. And it's a path which God ordains and is one that has freedom of deed and has freedom of thought.

And a person who chooses that, they choose it of their own free will and they exercise their own judgment. A healthy search for the permanent joys of life are in this particular path. The home becomes a place of rest where the body can relax and the soul expand.

Now think in there for a moment. We are Christian people and we say we love the Lord, but the home ought to be a place where there is peace, where you can sit down for a moment in quietness and relax.

The soul can expand. I mean, you can just sit and think about God. You can meditate on the Lord or you can sit and think about your family and how grateful you are and the love that is in the family. And you know, your emotions can just kind of settle down and there is peace.

And most homes never slow to that pace. Most homes are just in a, just a furor all the time. It is just something all the time. And when you walk in, the tension almost crackles in that home. Oh, they love one another and it's not argumentative or anything like that.

There is just a tension. How many homes you've been in, people you know that love the Lord and know the Lord and seemingly are faithful to the Lord, but there's not peace in that home. No one says, you know, your home is so peaceful.

They just like to come and sit, just like to kind of be around that home. Life that fits your needs and no one else's. Most people live their lives based upon the expectations that other people have for them.

That is extremely dangerous. I live most of my Christian life in that mode of trying to be what other people thought I should be or what I thought they thought I should be. Until I realized that was a rat race and that was a merry-go-round.

And then when I tried to get off of it, I couldn't get off because I was afraid I'd fall if I got off. The home I'm talking about or the life I'm talking about is the enjoyment of the fruits of their labor and the blessings that God bestows upon them in the manner prescribed by God.

And they can rest easy at night because they know they've done exactly that day what God wants them to do. They labored faithfully as God desired them to do and they trust and have the confidence that God will put his blessings upon their efforts for the day.

And so when they lay down that night, they can rest assured that God's presence is in their life and their efforts. And they're content with what they have and they are not covetous of what their neighbors have.

And that is called the path of life. The path of life. You and I know that we are not to envy our neighbors. Their showy furniture, their modish clothing, their superior tastes, all these usually are bought with the suffering of themselves and the children at the cost of serenity, at the cost of peace, at the cost of well-being, at the cost of happiness.

In Proverbs 14 verse 30 it says this, envy is the rottenness of the bones. And it's very easy for Christians to get caught up in envy. It just is. You know, I like when someone comes to visit me, I have a little routine.

Someone comes to visit me from out of town or something like that and those of you that have lived around Fort Worth, they'll know what I'm talking about. There's an area that is called Westover Hills in Fort Worth.

It has the highest per capita income of any community in the state of Texas right now. It is higher than Highland Park. It's where the Bass brothers live. If you don't know who the Bass brothers, it's where the Bass boys live.

They spend three million dollars a year on just security for their homes. You go out there and there's a guy got a home for sale. He's about 55 and he married a young stewardess and now they're getting divorced.

Has a home that he put two tons of marble in the second floor for her bath, specially made bath. Two tons of important marble he put up there. This house has a dance floor that'll hold 500 people at one time.

It's kind of on springs a little bit. It gives a little bit for relaxation. 24-hour security on some of those homes and I stopped this young couple here not too long ago from Chicago and I saw the security guard and I go out there so much they got where they know me.

You drive and have their own police force. You see it's right in the middle of Fort Worth. It's a community but it is in Fort Worth and it's its own city and they're their own police force and you drive around.

You won't drive along 15 -20 minutes. You'll just be out there cruising around day or night and all of a sudden a police car falling behind you and while you drive around looking at everything they checking your license tag out and find out who you are and all that but they see me out there so much I guess they think I'm a janitor or something you know or a gardener or something and so I stopped and I began to talk to him and he says oh the house is up for sale now.