Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Faith War Baptist Church.
If you would, grab a seat and we'll begin our service this evening.
When you find a seat, grab a hymnal and turn over to song number 292.
His way with the song number 292.
The song begins, Would you live for Jesus and be always here in good?
song two nine two sing it out with me on the first would you live for Jesus and be always doing good
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.
Thank you for the opportunity to be a church this evening.
Please fill Pastor Anderson or the preacher
with the Holy Spirit and help him
to preach boldly into us this evening.
And it's in Jesus' name that I pray.
Amen.
All right, next a few words.
Turn in your hymnals over to song number 194.
Song number 194, since Jesus came into my heart.
song number 194. Sing it out on the first.
What a wonderful change in my life has been brought since she just came into my heart.
That is sad.
In the valley of death, though for me, since Jesus came into my...
Shut up, Gullo.
hand my guys will give you one as soon as possible. So if you have a bulletin on
the upper left-hand side is our service times right below that is the
soul winning times at the very bottom is our salvation of baptisms for the year.
Happy birthday once again that everybody had an anniversary and a birthday this
month and at the very bottom brother Matt Walker brother Alex Larson will be
hosting another online soul winning marathon on Saturday September 13th from
1 to 5 p.m. If you are interested in participating or would like more
information please contact them for details on the back of the bulletin. We do have
Like passers-by swag in a very back, you know, so we'll have more stuff this Wednesday
We'll have more bottles water bottles caps visors, you know
So if you haven't got something you can go back there and get it
It's all free, of course
And you can find these items at the very back once again, you know, we had them over here
But we switch it down there just to make more space for people to walk around
So if you want something, please check it out when you get a chance
But in that take a look at the upcoming events when you get a chance
And I'm just gonna go over to so many numbers for the week
Starting on my left hand side, just go ahead and let me know.
I got one down here.
And the other salvation is for Thursday, Friday.
We got five, eight.
And the other salvation is for Friday.
I see four right there, Brother Matt.
OK.
Brother Tilson, I see you.
How many is that?
Is that three?
All right, you got three back there.
Brother Larson, is that three?
Thursday?
OK, three for Thursday.
Amen.
Six for Friday sounds good. So I raised S3 and give it a six and the other salvation's for you the Thursday or Friday
All right, let's do Saturday and you saw the two little man over there
He's like, yeah, I got two on Saturday. All right, I don't even know if you're out of diapers yet, but hey, we'll kind of center later
All right, so that's two. All right, so we've got two over here for Saturday and the other salvation for Saturday
We got one over here, brother Larson
Another salvation for Saturday and today salvation for today. We got one one. Is that correct one-on-one?
And the other salvation's we got three right over here, brother
And then we got Ramon one back there one
So that is all right. We got five over here
seven amen
And there's our patients for today
All right, brother Alex lead us in the next song
All right, next, if you're hymnal, if you would turn over to song number 53, song number 53, Beulah Land.
Song begins, I've reached the land of joy divine and all its riches freely mine.
Song number 53, Beulah Land.
Sing it out on the first.
I've reached the land of joy divine and all its riches freely mine.
It was full day, for all the night has passed away.
Oh, view the land, sweet view the land, has on my highest.
And I said, I looked away across the sea,
where mansions are free, there for me,
in the shining, glorious shore.
I say to her, come and watch with me, and sweet communion, here I leave, and we leave,
we pride ourselves for this is heaven's former land.
Oh, bulla land, sweet bulla land, as on thy highest mount I stand,
I look away across the sea where vengeance lies.
And feel the shining glory
Where mentioned are three reveries, And through the shining glory sure I have my home forevermore.
These have received to float to me sweet sounds of heaven's melody,
As angels with a white robe drawn join in the sweet redemption song.
All right, lastly, let's turn on our hymnals again over to song number 248.
Song number 248, now I belong to Jesus.
Song number 248.
Sing it out on the first.
Jesus, my Lord, will love me forever
From in the power of evil conserver
I grew and stopped my soul, now I belong to Him.
Now I belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to me.
Not for the years of time alone, but for eternity.
Once I was lost in segregation, Jesus came down to bring me salvation, lifted me up from sorrow and shame.
Now I belong to Him.
Now I belong to Jesus.
Bring me from sin that long had enslaved me His precious blood He gave to redeem
Now I belong to Him
Now I belong to Jesus
Eternity.
Hey, man, great singing, everyone.
Now that we're on the offering place, please turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter number seven.
1 Corinthians chapter number seven.
First Corinthians chapter 7 the Bible reads now concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me
It is good for a man not to touch a woman
Nevertheless to avoid fornication let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband
Let the husband render under the wife do benevolence and likewise also the wife under the husband
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body
but the wife
Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer,
and come together again that Satan tempts you not for your incontinency.
But I speak this by permission and not of commandment, for I would that all men were even as I myself,
but every man hath this proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that.
I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as
I, but if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.
And unto the married I command, yet not I but the Lord, let not the wife depart from
her husband, but, and if she depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband,
and let not the husband put away his wife.
If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him,
let him not put her away.
And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her,
let her not leave him.
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified
by the husband, else were your children unclean, but now are they holy.
But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart.
A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God hath called us to peace.
For what knowest thou a wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?
Or how knowest thou a man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?
but his God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk,
and so are day and I in all churches. Is any man called being circumcised? Let him not become
uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing,
and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let every man abide in
the same calling wherein he was called. Are thou called being a servant? Care not for it.
But if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.
For he that is called in the Lord,
being a servant, is the Lord's freeman.
Likewise also, he that is called being free is Christ's servant.
You're bought with a price,
be not ye the servants of men.
Brother, and let every man wherein he is called,
therein abide with God.
Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord yet
I give my judgment as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful I
Suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress
I say that it is good for a man so to be art thou bound unto a wife seek not to be loosed
Art thou loose from a wife seek not a wife
But and if thou Mary thou is not sinned and if a virgin Mary she had not sinned nevertheless
Such shall have trouble in the flesh, but I spare you, but this I say, brethren, the time is short.
It remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none, and they that weep as though they wep not, and they that rejoice as though they rejoice not,
and they that buy as though they possess not, and they that use this world is not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away.
But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord,
But he that is married, careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.
There is difference also between a wife and a virgin.
The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord that she may be holy, both in body and in spirit.
But she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
And this I speak for your own profit.
Not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely and that you may attend upon the Lord without distraction.
But if any man think that he behaved with himself
uncomely toward his virgin, if she passed the flower of her age
and needs so require, let him do what he will,
he sineth not, let them marry.
Nevertheless, he that standeth steadfast in his heart,
having no necessity, but hath power over his own will,
and hath so decreed in his heart
that he will keep his virgin doeth well.
So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well,
but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better.
The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth.
But if her husband be dead, she is at liberty
to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord.
But she is happier if she so abide after my judgment.
And I think also that I have the Spirit of God.
Dear Father in Heaven, please fill the pastor with your spirit.
Please give us the ears to hear, to receive wisdom from the sermon this evening.
And thank you for leading us and giving your Son to pay for our sins.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Men, this evening we're continuing as we go through the book of 1 Corinthians.
And we're here in chapter 7.
And before we delve into chapter 7 here,
I want to show you a little bit of the context because we're just coming off of
this conversation in chapter 6 about how our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost and how
we should flee fornication, we should abstain from fornication. Those who commit fornication
are sinning against their own body is what the Bible said there at the very end of 1 Corinthians
chapter 6 and that's what rolls into this thought in chapter 7 verse 1 where it says,
it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
Now, what did he write unto them?
Well, there's obviously some other correspondence here
between the Apostle Paul and the Church at Corinth
other than what we have in the Scripture.
You know, we have the books of 1st and 2nd Corinthians.
These are the divinely inspired Scriptures that we have
that God used the Apostle Paul to give us.
But obviously, as a human being,
the Apostle Paul did a lot of other writing
on his own he just wrote things and if God wanted us to have those things we would have them
and we don't have them because we're not supposed to have them because they're not the word of God
they're just stuff that Paul wrote it's just correspondence that happened that's why in the
book of 2 Corinthians Paul says this is the third time I'm writing to you because there is another
previous writing that was done before 1 Corinthians now go back to chapter five and I'm going to show
why that's important with this particular subject
and how clear that is in 1 Corinthians chapter five.
He says in verse nine,
I wrote unto you in an epistle,
not to company with fornicators.
So again, he's alluding to that earlier writing
that he had done and he's saying,
you know, when I wrote to you earlier,
I said, don't company with fornicators.
So apparently that first letter had been very negative
about fornication, even to the point maybe
sound a little bit stronger than he should have
and maybe went a little over the top
because he's clarifying things because he says,
you know, why wrote under you an epistle
not to company with fornicators,
but then he has to clarify, you know,
I'm talking about someone who's called a brother,
who's a fornicator and so forth.
So we have to kind of piece this together
from what we have here in scripture.
But what seems to have happened is that
he wrote them kind of a rip roar and epistle
against fornication.
and he's ripping on fornication,
telling him not to hang around with fornicators
and all these different things.
And then they apparently wrote back to him,
asking him a question, saying like,
okay, well then, you know, what's the solution?
What do we do?
Or something like that.
So then he says in verse one of chapter seven,
now concerning the things where I've you wrote in me,
it's good for a man not to touch a woman.
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication,
let every man have his own wife.
and let every woman have her own husband.
So it seems that when they wrote back to him,
they probably came at him saying,
hey, should we just be celibate?
You know, are we supposed to just remain single?
You know, you're single, Paul,
and you're doing all these great works for God
as a single man.
Is that what we should do ideally?
Should we remain single?
Should we just...
totally forego that physical relationship and just be totally celibate, right?
And there are a lot of religions that teach that.
I mean, there are all kinds of Buddhist monks and Catholic monks and people,
you know, that somehow think that that's a higher level of spirituality just being
celibate. That's just the ideal that everyone should strive for or something
like that. And that isn't true. That isn't biblical.
So here Paul is saying, you know, concerning what you wrote unto me,
that was really negative toward fornication,
apparently you guys wrote back to me saying,
hey, maybe we should just be celibate.
And then he's saying, well, hey,
it's good to not touch a woman.
It's good for a man to be celibate
if that's what his calling is,
if that's God's will for his life.
But in general, in order to avoid fornication,
every man should have his own wife
and every woman should have her own husband.
So that seems to be the context here
of where this is coming from.
in verse number one concerning the things wherever you run into me it's good for a man not to touch a
woman but to avoid fornication everybody in general should get married then he's going to go on to
talk about the exception that there are some people you know who have been given that gift by God
where you know this is not something that they need they can go through life single and thrive
and serving God but in general the Bible clearly teaches that it's not good for the man to be alone
Right and that's why God even gave the man his wife in the first place God's plan in general for humanity
Is that we get married and that we stay faithful to that one spouse till death do us part and that is the plan
that's what we're supposed to do and
People being single and just living their whole life single. That's the exception. That's an exceptional person
For whom that is the will of God for their life, and that's what the Bible is teaching here
So to avoid fornication every man should have his own wife
Every woman should have their own husband and then it says in verse number three let the husband render under the wife do
Benevolence and likewise also the wife under the husband and this is a
euphemism for the physical relationship here
You know the due benevolence is basically saying you know that the man needs to give his wife
what she needs physically, he needs to have that physical, marital relationship with her,
and vice versa, because of the fact that that is a big reason for why we're getting married in the
first place, right? The Bible is saying to avoid fornication, we get married so that we can indulge in that
relationship righteously within the boundaries of marriage,
the way it's supposed to be enjoyed and not be out there having illicit relationships out there known as fornication.
And then it goes on, verse number four,
to say, the wife hath not power of her own body,
but the husband, and likewise also,
the husband hath not power of his own body,
but the wife defraud ye not one the other,
except it be with consent for a time
that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer,
and come together again that Satan tempts you not
for your incontinency.
Now, the Bible could not be clearer here that this is an obligation in marriage, this is a duty, this is not optional.
And it would make zero sense to say,
oh, to avoid fornication, get married.
Oh, but then, you know, you might just be married
and then still just going without that relationship
for, you know, long periods of time, months
or even years on end, going without that relationship
in marriage, then how does that avoid fornication then?
Right, so the whole point is like,
look, to avoid fornication,
You, number one, get married, but, number two, you also have to indulge in that relationship within marriage
in order for this plan to work, and then, number three, in order for this plan to work,
there has to be a rule that you're not allowed to say no, okay, because otherwise, what's even the point?
And that's what the Bible is clearly saying here, and it's so funny to watch people do all kinds of mental gymnastics
to try to get around the clear teaching of this passage
when the Bible is just crystal clear here.
And you see them come up with all these weird raps
and they write these walls of text on social media
in response to actual biblical preaching
from 1 Corinthians 7.
Oh no, no, no, that's not what the Bible's talking about here.
It's a mutual, consensual, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Now why don't we just go with what the Bible says?
Get married.
have sex with your wife, have sex with your husband, and that's it.
And if you don't feel like it, you do it anyway because the Bible said so.
Like, what, like, are we done here or what?
Can we move on?
But instead, people don't like what the Bible says, they don't care what the Bible says.
You know, I wonder, do I, do I just only go to work when I feel like it?
Does my wife only cook dinner when she feels like it?
Do we only change the baby's diaper when we feel like it?
Think about it. You know, do we just brush our teeth because we feel like it?
You know, we do things in life. We go to work. We take care of business.
We get things done and we do our duty. And you know what? Sometimes we don't do things for ourselves. We do things for other people.
Am I right or you just only do stuff for yourself. No, sometimes you do things for other people
You know sometimes your wife might want to do something and you do it for her
You know, maybe she wants to go somewhere or something and you you don't really feel like going anywhere
You'd rather just sit on your butt at home. You're tired and busy, but you get up and you say no, you know what hey
My wife wants to go to the zoo or whatever.
Hey, let's go, let's go to the zoo.
And you go and you do things that other people want to do
to make them happy.
You might go to the restaurant that she wants to go to
or you might go to the restaurant that he wants to go to.
And our lives should be obviously about doing things
not just for ourselves but doing things for other people.
and being a team player and realizing,
hey, it's not just what I feel like eating
and drinking every day.
You know, what does the rest of the family
want to eat and drink?
And you know, like my wife has sometimes cooked things
for me that she doesn't like at all
and she doesn't want to eat at all,
but she just cooked it because she knew that I like it.
and she's just doing me a favor, just helping me out.
Like, I don't understand why this is so hard to understand.
This seems like a pretty clear,
easy to understand concept of the fact
that marriage is supposed to be a two-way street, okay?
Obviously, when it comes to authority,
yeah, the husband is the boss
and the wife is supposed to submit to him,
but in general, friendships in general,
marriage in particular,
church, everything in life is kind of a two-way street,
and you go through life with a little bit of give and take
doing things that other people want,
because you love them and you want them to be happy,
you want them to enjoy,
you want them to have a good time too, right?
You and your wife go out,
you usually pick something that you're both gonna enjoy.
You try to make both people happy,
or you try to make the other person happy.
It's sort of like I talked about this morning.
how a baby or a little child wants everything to be their way
and they'll sometimes fight over getting their way,
whereas sometimes you'll see adults fight over giving the other person their way.
No, no, I'll pay the bill, or, you know, no, you ride up front.
Let me ride in the backseat.
As maturity comes, that switch is over.
You know, that's how it should be in life that we're looking out for other people
and thinking about other people.
But I'll tell you where the stupid doctrine is coming from and when I say the stupid doctrine, I'm talking about these these wicked
more on pastors who are getting up and saying,
oh, you should never pressure your wife
into being intimate with you, and how dare you,
and how dare you demand that your wife be intimate.
You just need to whine her and dine her more,
and all this kind of just stupid,
asinine, wicked preaching that's unbiblical and wrong.
Like I have to earn the right,
or that my wife has to earn the right
to get physical every single time.
That's wrong. It's not biblical and it's it's not even common sense, but I'll tell you where it's coming from
It's coming from this round peg into a square hole of
Trying to take the world's way of looking at things and trying to superimpose it on a biblical
stratum
Okay, what do I mean by that?
Well, because here's the thing, we as Christians are living a totally different life in this area than the world is.
And what are the big differences?
Well, the world basically is not waiting until marriage to indulge in this relationship.
Right? The world teaches that fornication is okay.
So they're approaching this thing from a totally different perspective of just free fornication before you're married.
And then second of all, they're also approaching this from a thing that marriage is not permanent,
that marriage is not necessarily lifelong.
And because they have these totally different viewpoints,
their viewpoint on this particular subject of physical intimacy in marriage is totally wrong and different.
And then Christian pastors are trying to compromise and kind of mix the two,
because there's the thing, if I went to just unsaved, worldly, ungodly, non-Christian people,
And I just said to them, hey, you know, my wife is refusing to be intimate with me.
You know what they'd say?
They'd just say, well, you just need to leave your wife.
Or, oh my husband's refusing to be intimate, oh well you just need to leave your husband.
That's their answer for almost everything is just leave, they have this button that says
leave your spouse, leave your spouse, get a divorce, you need to be happy.
If you're not happy, then you need to move on, move on, get divorced, get separated,
legal separation, trial separation.
That is the garbage that's coming from this world.
and getting their advice about how to have a marriage and it doesn't fit because that's not the way we do business as Christians.
The way that we look at life is, hey, I'm getting married for life, I'm in it to win it, it's till death do us part,
and here's the thing, going outside of marriage to fulfill that craving is not on the table for Christians.
Christians are only allowed to indulge in that relationship.
within marriage and so therefore God is looking out for us saying okay, you know get married and
Once you're married, you know, you can indulge in that relationship
You know to your heart's content and
You should be looking out for each other. You should be render and here's the thing rendering do but nevelence
You know, it should be a kind and loving thing
Should be a good thing a nice thing. That's what benevolence means
Okay, render the do benevolence, but then just for all the morons out there all the ex-NIFP idiots
And let's just name their names David Bursons
Jared Pozarski right these fools Joe Jones
who teach this garbage
Jason Robinson and you know, I'm naming these people's names because they are
Destroying people's marriages with their stupid crap
And you know what if you think that these guys are right and you think that that feminist crap is the right way to run your house
You know, you should probably just leave our church and go to some sissy
worldly stupid church down the street because you know what
I am dead set against their wicked false teaching,
and I can't even believe that these people were ever in the new IFB,
and then get up and defy what is clearly taught in 1 Corinthians chapter 7.
It's garbage. I would get out of these churches as fast as I could.
would rather go to a pre-trib Zionist church than some church where the pastor
gets up and says oh if you force the issue with your wife you're bad you're
evil I'm telling you man this is this this teaching needs to be nipped in the
bud okay this is not a small matter
This is real people's lives, real people's lives.
Oh, the horror stories.
Oh, the horror stories about a husband forcing his wife to have sex with him.
It sounds like a horror story that a wife is refusing to have sex with their own lawfully wedded husband.
That's the horror, that's what's scary to me.
You say, oh, aren't you afraid to preach this way?
No, if you haven't noticed for the last 20 years, I get up and preach what the Bible says,
and this world can just go stick it.
I don't care what they think.
I don't care what they say, I don't care if they like me or not, they've already called me every name under the sun and accused me of things and it's funny, they accuse me of things all the time because I'm defending God's people.
You know what I'm saying? I'm defending God's people, and then they accuse me of somehow being guilty of something. No, no
I'm not guilty of something here my friend. I'm up here defending God's people and defending marriage and defending the truth
And you know what? I don't care how many times I have to preach this. I'm gonna keep preaching it until
Our stupid backwards world gets the message
And you want to know what's really funny about this too is that somehow this preaching is seen as anti-woman
or male chauvinist preaching.
But you know what?
I've been pastoring for 20 years
and you know that I have seen more often
and I've done a lot of marriage counseling
and I've dealt with a lot of marriage problems,
not just in our church because frankly,
our church has way fewer marriage problems
than the general public.
There are actually very few marriage problems in our church, thank God.
But you know what? I'm constantly dealing with marriage problems outside of our church
because obviously I have a much broader sphere of influence than our physical church here.
I've got all kinds of pastor friends and people that look to me and talk to me
and I've got all kinds of listeners and people that email me and reach out to me.
Look, I go around the country and I preach all over the country
and I'm making friends all over the country and I try to help people out when I can.
marriage counseling and helping people with their marriages over the last 20
years and let me tell you something I've seen more situations where the wife was
actually the one saying that her husband was not interested in her physically you
know so it's like you have this narrative that that all I'm just
preaching this because I'm anti-woman and I'm just you know defending the big
bad mean men or something
You know some some some pastor with with it's half lesbian or something. You know just hates man or something
Thinks I'm misogynistic for teaching that hey, this is a marital obligation
But here's the true story my friend
More times in the last 20 years. It is more often. It is the woman saying
I'm upset because my husband is refusing to be intimate with me my husband is no longer interested in me
What do I do and and and the wife is upset?
Way more than the man coming and saying oh my wife is refusing to be intimate with me. What do I do?
You know, it's actually the other way around
And maybe that's why, when you read it in the Bible, it actually goes both ways.
It's actually a two-way street.
It's saying, hey, the man should not deny his wife this relationship.
The woman should not deny her husband this relationship.
This is actually a very egalitarian text in the Bible.
You know, there are some texts in the Bible that make it clear
that the husband's the authority and that the wife's supposed to submit.
But yet this text is one of the most egalitarian texts in the Bible
The wife hath not power of her own body but the husband,
and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body but the wife.
I mean, that sounds pretty stinkin' fair to me.
What is the problem?
What is the malfunction?
I'm not just saying, hey, you know, if you're a woman and you don't feel like it,
hey, you need to spend time with your husband anyway and get physical with your husband.
I'm saying also that if you're a husband and you don't feel like it, you know what?
You still need to give your wife what she needs and make her happy too.
It's a two-way street. It's one of the most egalitarian texts in the Bible and yet these feminist
weirdo feminazis are trying to ruin it for us out in the world and then it creeps into God's house and
You have somebody who claims to be a man of God and then you wonder why these people are cowards in other areas
You know if a man of God doesn't have the stones to get up and preach first Corinthians 7
Which is one of the clearest verses in the Bible?
And let me tell you something, I know I'm not wrong about this, I would sooner believe
I was wrong about the Jews and Israel and the rapture and everything else than the thing
I'm wrong about this, because this is like the clearest verse in the whole Bible.
There's only one reason to preach wrong on 1 Corinthians chapter 7, it's because you're
a weenie.
Okay?
That's the only reason.
And or you're just a compromiser or you just love the world or you just love you're just I don't know what you are
But you're gross
Because first Corinthians seven and and I saw so many people comment over here like don't die on this hill pastor
First of all, I'm not gonna first of all. I'm not gonna die on this hill because I'm gonna live on this hill number one
I'm over here playing King of the Hill
because honestly, like, this is not a die on the hill
because you know what, normal people love this kind of preaching.
Normal husbands and wives are like,
yeah, you know what, yeah, that makes sense, yeah.
We should want to take care of each other in this area.
We should want to take care of each other in every area.
Now it's like, ah, meh, meh, meh, meh.
My husband's gonna just rape me or something like,
what, are you insane?
Number one, I'm not dying on the hill.
I'm playing king of the hill over here
because normal people love this preaching
and want to hear this.
Especially in the year 2025,
people are starting to wake up
to all the feminist garbage out in this world
and they're sick of it.
But number two, if I were to die on this hill,
this is a hill that I would love to die on.
Honestly, if the people in the church couldn't handle what I'm saying from 1 Corinthians 7 right now,
I would just be happy to just run it into the ground and shut the doors and padlock them and go walk away
and go turn a screwdriver somewhere and go pull fire alarm cables somewhere.
Then to pastor a church filled with a bunch of sissies
and losers who can't take a stand for what the Word of God says in 2025 America.
Then you know what? I'm just going to go get a different job. Is that all right?
Because I'm not going to pastor a bunch of weird feminist freaks.
You know, the Bible says, you know, as you can see, I have strong opinions about the subject.
But like I said, this is totally egalitarian. It totally goes both ways.
But again, you know why the world is out there saying like oh, that's horrible
Oh, you can't make your spouse do that blah blah blah
It's because they're just out there just committing all this fornication
Committing all this adultery getting separated getting divorced. Well, then yeah, they have all kinds of options on the table
You know it'd be it'd be like if you have one guy who doesn't have any money to eat out at all
Right, so this guy like when my wife and I first got married
Her allowance for food and toiletries and household items was $40 a week.
I mean, we had like no money, right?
So, I mean, we were just, we never ate out, unless my parents were buying.
So we went out to dinner with them every Friday night because, you know,
we ate at Chili's with my parents every Friday night because they were buying.
But that was the only time we went out to eat.
Okay, we ate home cooked meals because we just didn't have the money. We didn't have any money
So here's the thing when I would go to work. I always had to bring a sack lunch
And I'd be eating my sack lunch and then the guys at work. They'd be going to fast food
They'd be not the Roach coach. They'd be doing these different things, but not me man. I had the sack lunch. Okay?
Now here's the thing a lot of other guys, you know, they've been married longer. They're more established in their career
Maybe they're making more money. They can you know, they can eating off the Roach coach is no problem for them
Going to restaurants is no problem for them. They got plenty of money. So here's the thing if their wife
Stops making them a lunch or stops sending a lunch or doesn't make them a lunch. It's not a major disaster. They're just like
Okay, whatever
Let's go to jack in the box or whatever
Whereas like what about what about me like if my wife doesn't make me lunch. I'm just gonna be starving all day
Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So what if my wife just doesn't make a lunch?
and I'm going out and working a super long day
and then the next day she's not making a lunch
and I'm just over here, you know, withering away
and there's no food and I'm not being fed
and I'm not getting any food, right?
And then over here, it's like,
and then this other guy's just like
got some subway 12 inch like subway.
Oh, yeah, you can't just make,
you can't just tell your wife she has to make you a lunch.
I mean, yeah, why is that her responsibility
to make you a lunch?
Does everybody see how stupid that would be because like so well
That's easy for you to say because you you just eat out. I don't have any money
I'm relying on the brown bag. You know what I mean? And here's the thing
Let's face it. My brown bag lunch was way better than what the roach coach was selling. Anyway
news flash
Taco Bell and Jack in the Box and Burger King that everybody else was eating what I was eating was homemade gourmet stuff in that bag
And it was good
And you know what? What God has provided for us is good.
What God has provided for us in marriage is better than what's out there in the world,
but it takes two to tango and we need to have God's people doing their part in every area of life, including in marriage.
Being a good husband means taking care of your wife in this area.
Being a good wife means taking care of your husband in this area.
And by the way, you know, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.
And this is kind of a sensitive subject, and so I don't want to go too far or say too much.
But I do want to say this.
You know, some of the reason why you got men totally losing interest in their wives is because they're looking at porno.
You know, let's talk about that elephant in the room.
And I'm not saying that that's always the problem.
I'm not, you know, so you don't want to just start accusing people or something like that.
But the point is, that's a big part of where this problem is coming from.
You know, it's like because here's the thing it'd be kind of weird if me because because my wife and I
You know when we first got married, you know, I was
Young I was you know 19 years old, and I was very thin
You know I couldn't even gain weight to save my life. You know oh to have that problem again
But you know I mean I was really thin, and I was just eating
Like you couldn't believe basically eating the same way I eat now, but it just didn't stick to me the way that it does now
And the thing is it'd be a little wouldn't it be a little weird if I was coming home every day
and just returning my lunch uneaten to my wife every day like I'm going out and I'm working and I'm out for
you know my first job was 10 hours a day so you know I'm out of the house for almost 11 hours
and I come home after being gone for 11 hours and just bring back lunch just
oh I wasn't really hungry I didn't really eat this and be like what the heck
She knows what's going on. I've been hitting Taco Bell. I've been hitting Burger King. I've been hitting Jack in the Box
Right. She's gonna know that she's gonna be sniffing my breath to see if there's long John Silver's on my breath
Because that's kind of a little weird, you know that I don't want to eat my food
But you want to know what the true story was I pulled out that brown bag and I'd be I mean it on the way to the job
It's not even lunchtime, and I'm already tapping into that thing. I'm already eating the chip
I you know my wife's just put chips and salsa in my lunch every day
And I kid you not I was I love the chips and salsa so much that I knew the chips also
I never made it to lunchtime never
I would literally, it was just a daily routine.
I would just get in the work truck.
I would, because when I first started,
I was the support technician.
So, you know, the other guy's driving,
I hop in the passenger seat,
and it was just chips and salsa on the way to the job site.
And I would just chips and salsa for breakfast,
like save the rest of the lunch for lunchtime,
but the chips and salsa is now.
And it's not that I didn't eat breakfast at home
because I did, okay.
But then I was like, all right, second breakfast,
chips and salsa, let's go.
And you know, the people that I work with will laugh at me,
like you're always just eating chips and salsa at 8 a.m.
Like what's going on?
But because I was hungry.
And you know what the Bible says,
the full soul loathed the honeycomb,
but to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet.
That's what the Bible says.
And so, you know, that's something to think about.
I'm not saying that that's always the case.
I'm not saying that that's always the problem,
but that is a massive problem.
in our culture today, especially with the internet
and smartphones and everything, you got a bunch of guys
that are watching a bunch of stuff
that they shouldn't be watching, and then all of a sudden,
oh, they have no interest in their wife,
and it's unhealthy, it's damaging,
it's hurtful to the marriage.
And so, you know, thinking that this is anti-woman is absurd.
It's like when I preach against divorce,
people think it's anti-woman,
as if men are divorced and their wives.
It's a two-way street, folks.
It goes both ways. You know, marriage protects women, too.
You know, and in fact, I think marriage almost protects women more than it protects men.
Because let's just be real for a second, okay?
Let's just be real. Later in life, if the two part their ways,
just statistically speaking, the man's got more earning power.
Right and and the man has got probably a better chance at more easily getting remarried or whatever in the world's economy
I'm saying, you know, it's wicked. It's wrong, but it's true
That typically men are going to be the ones that are better off in this equation in general
Right women in their fifties versus men in their fifties parting ways. Who's probably going to be able to
Make it better out there in this world
You know, the woman's the weaker vessel, my friend.
And let me tell you something,
marriage protects both parties.
God's way is right.
God loves the husband and God loves the wife.
And he's putting these measures in place
to keep both of them happy,
both of them in their lane
and both of them serving God effectively.
And so, you know, I spend a lot of time on that subject,
but it's an important subject.
And so it's worth spending time on, amen.
It says,
But I speak this by permission and not of commandment,
for I would that all men were even as I myself,
but every man had this proper gift of God,
one after this, manner, and another after that.
And so what he's saying here is, he's saying,
look, we're not commanded to get married.
When the Bible says,
Let every man have his own wife.
Let every woman have her own husband.
He's saying that's not a commandment,
it's permission to get married.
It's permission to get married
so that you can not be tempted by fornication.
Because incontinency is like you can't contain yourself.
And so, hey, you might get tempted because of your incontinency.
You're so hungry.
And look, there were times when I did break down in those days
when we had no money, and I broke down and went to fast food
a couple of times anyway.
You know, and the thing about that is that, obviously,
that wasn't a sin.
So it wasn't really that bad to just be like, oh, nuts to it.
I'm, you know, I'm hungry.
I'm getting a burrito or whatever.
There's no sin there.
fornication is a big sin, adultery is a big sin.
Okay, and so, but the same principle applies
that if I ate my chips and salsa on the way to the job site,
if I ate my lunch once I got to the job,
then I'm not even gonna be nearly as tempted,
I might not even be tempted at all by the roach coach
or fast food,
because I already have something better in my brown bag.
Right, whereas if you're just starving, starving, starving,
you know, and the Bible talks about somebody who,
you know, will steal because they're so hungry.
stealing for the satisfying of their soul.
And obviously there's never an excuse for fornication,
there's never an excuse for adultery,
but why go through life surrounding yourself by temptation
when you can go through life avoiding temptation, right?
What does the Bible say in the Lord's prayer?
Lead us not into temptation.
So why would you lead yourself into temptation?
Well, here's a good way to have less temptation in your life.
Take care of that relationship with your spouse.
at home the right way then you're not tempted out there in the world.
Obviously it's not an excuse because I don't care how starving you are
fornication and adultery are off the table.
And by the way you know we all we all were single at one point and we all had to abstain
you know for years when we were single.
So obviously it can be done but here's the thing you know you don't necessarily want to do that
You know move on from that phase of life
You do what you got to do, but the Bible says I speak by permission not of commandment
You're not commanded to get married, but you have the permission to get married is what the Bible saying
And then it says for I would that all men were even as I myself what he means there is single
He's single he's saying you know
personally
I like the idea of just everybody just being single
and obviously this is not practical.
He's just saying, you know, from his perspective,
he feels like he can serve God more as a single man.
So he's like, man, I would love for everybody
to just be single and just serve God, but.
But, verse 7, every man hath this proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.
He's saying, man, I wish everybody were like me, because if everybody were like the Apostle Paul,
the whole world would just be getting evangelized like crazy.
Because the Apostle Paul just did an insane amount of evangelism.
So he's like, man, I wish everybody was just like me, we'd just evangelize the whole world overnight.
Okay, but he said no, that's not the way the world works. Everybody's different. Everybody has the proper gift of God
And look, I'm not the Apostle Paul chances are you're not the Apostle Paul
Maybe you are the Apostle Paul. God bless you. Go turn the world upside down
But most of us aren't and so most of us are gonna need to get married and live a more normal balanced life
And by the way, out of all of the apostles,
and we don't know exactly how many apostles there were,
but there are at least like 82, right?
Because he has 12 apostles and then you ordain 70 more apostles.
So you have scores of apostles and the apostle Paul in chapter 9 of this very book says
that they're all married except him and Barnabas.
So they're all married except him and Barnabas.
So the average apostle is married. Paul's the exception, okay?
let alone non-apostles, let alone laymen.
And so he says in verse eight,
I say therefore to the unmarried and widows,
it's good for them if they abide even as I.
So look, if you're unmarried, if you're a widow,
he says, hey, that's great.
Just enjoy that, serve God, do your best for God
while you're in that situation.
But if they cannot contain meaning like,
hey, I'm not happy being by myself,
I need to fulfill this desire.
With the opposite gender then it says, you know, let them marry for it's better to marry than to burn
And the idea here is beta marry than to burn with lust and just be you know, just not able to function because you're just so
You know
preoccupied with this other thing and
So he says hey if they can't contain let them marry
Some people can handle being single others. It's a big challenge and so they should just get married
He says in verse 10 and under the married eye command yet not I
But the Lord letting out the wife depart from her husband so notice he's saying look my opinion is hey
Man if you're single just just go crazy serving God
You know it'd be like if I said hey you young single guys and gals man
You got all this time you got all this energy you got all this opportunity man
Go out there and just get a bunch of people save go on these mission strips and go soul winning and go crazy with it, right?
And that's what the Apostle Paul's attitude here is.
But he understands that, look, human beings also just have a need
to live a normal life and have companionship and be married
and have that relationship.
And so he's like, well, my opinion is, you know,
I love that you guys are single
and you can go out and do all this soul winning.
But then he says, okay, now here's my commandment
for those that are married.
And he said, I'm not the one commanding this.
It's the Lord that's commanding it.
Does everybody see that in verse number 10?
under the married eye command, yet not I, but the Lord.
Let not the wife depart from her husband."
I want to ask some of these pastors out there,
what part of letting out the wife depart from her husband
do you not understand?
And by the way, it doesn't just say
letting out the wife divorce her husband,
which that's true too.
Jesus said that in the Gospel of Mark.
That's true, but you know what it says,
let her not depart from her husband.
Okay, so this whole trial separation, legal separation, separating from your husband is
a bullcrap, unbiblical, made up doctrine, and the pastors that are teaching it need
to get right with God.
It says, let not the wife depart from her husband, but if she depart, let her remain
unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife.
Right, letting out the husband divorce his wife letting out the wife to part from her husband. It's a two-way street here and
It says here if she does depart let her remain unmarried or be reconciled her husband
I now keep your finger here because we're gonna have a little bit of a
Marriage for dummies right now, so keep your finger here in 1st Corinthians chapter 7 and let's go to 1st John chapter 2
Because what happens is people come along, these people that are just trying so hard
to put the round peg into the square hole to try to please a world that's okay with fornication.
To please a world that's okay with adultery.
To please a world that says, oh, if you're not happy, get divorced.
If you're not in love anymore, get divorced, right?
That's what the world is telling you.
And then trying to take their ideas
and superimpose them onto a biblical marriage,
this is what they'll say.
They'll say, well, you know,
God is making an allowance in 1 Corinthians 7
for her to leave.
Because it says, let not the wife, but if she does.
So therefore it's saying that, hey, you know,
she can leave, you know.
Did you know she can leave guys? You get this stupid preaching. Hey first Corinthians 7 is clear
You know she can leave and this is in Afghanistan
Nor should it be? We don't want it to be Afghanistan and what's funny is that like Islam actually
provides for easy divorce
That's what's so stupid and ignorant about this preaching that says,
oh, you're the Taliban if you stand for biblical marriage.
If you stand for marriage till death do us part,
if you preach your heart against divorce and say that women can't leave their husbands for any reason,
and, you know, I already dealt with this whole, you know, beaten-to-a-pulp stupid asinine argument
Fire-breathing Baptist fellow who heard my sermon from the fire-breathing Baptist fellowship? Yeah
So I already dealt with I guess we could call that pulp fiction
You know these this made-up story about the you know beat into a pulp stuff
I already dealt with that stupid objection, but it's funny because when you preach hard about this stuff
It's like oh your Islam you're the Taliban the irony is that Islam actually teaches easy divorce
You can divorce your wife for any reason in Islam
It's in the Qur'an itself, and back when I preached through the Qur'an, exposing all of its garbage,
I showed the passages in the Qur'an, I showed those teachings that teach easy divorce in Islam.
And then Pastor Shelley, you know, man, him and his crew are so good at digging up all this legal stuff.
I don't know where they get this stuff, but it's awesome.
But Pastor Shelley and Ben the Baptist them, they dig up the most wonderful things from history.
They were digging up laws in the United States where if people found out that you separated from your spouse,
That you like that you're married, but you're not actually living together and you've separated then actually you would be punished by the state
It was a crime
To do it to be separated while you're married and it was like it was like if you're separated for more than three months or something
Then they could start finding you I don't remember the exact timing and money
But it was like the person who informed on you got some of the money or something
It was like
As an America
Afghanistan has never done anything like that.
But America used to actually punish people
for desecrating and polluting marriage
and not taking it seriously.
Folks, it's not Islam, it's Christianity.
It's the Bible that says that we should stay married.
And so, you know, the Bible is clear on this.
It says, but and if she depart.
Now, let's test their logic in Saba'u'llah.
They're in 1 John.
Look at 1 John chapter 2.
Verse one it says my little children these things right I unto you that you sin not and
If any man sin we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ, right? So I guess it's okay to sin too
Because he's making an allowance for sin right because he's like he's like don't sin
But if you do we have an advocate with the father so I is God saying that sin is sometimes okay
Sometimes it's okay to sin, is that what the Bible is saying?
Okay, well guess what? That's the same thing as 1 Corinthians 7.
1 John 2 says, don't sin,
but if you do, we have an advocate with the Father. 1 Corinthians 7 says,
don't leave your husband, but if you do, you have to remain unmarried or be
reconciled to your husband.
That is not saying, sometimes it's okay to just do it. I'm losing my mic here.
It says don't do it. Don't put away your wife. Don't depart from your husband figure out a way to make it work
Get it done
And it's funny the same people that are sitting there telling you to defraud your spouse is also okay
or they're telling you, well, you know, if she does,
you know, maybe it's your fault and you, you know,
you can just go punish yourself or something for it.
They're the same people telling you also
that it's okay to get separations,
to work on your marriage, to be reconciled from afar.
Folks, let me tell you something, okay?
I've been a Christian for a long time.
I've been pastoring for a long time.
I deal with this stuff all the time.
And even before I was a pastor, I saw this frequently.
When people get separated,
they typically end up getting divorced.
Separation is a step on the road to divorce.
And once people get separated,
they're way more likely to get divorced than if they don't.
So this thing of, oh, get separated
so that you can fix things is a horrible advice.
The thing is, you know, let me just start by saying this.
Okay, if you have marriage problems, even if they're horrible marriage problems,
they're way easier to fix when they're not public.
You know what I mean?
And I think that the worst marriage problem that anybody can have,
in my opinion, is probably unfaithfulness, right?
Like the worst the worst marriage problem is that either the husband's unfaithful or the wife's unfaithful. That's kind of the big one
But you know what? There are a lot of people who have even survived that and their marriage has survived that right?
They they've dealt with it. It's horrible. It's bad
But they're able to weather that storm
but you know you know what happens though a lot of times is that someone will be unfaithful and
And it's not even the unfaithfulness that destroys the marriage, but as soon as the unfaithfulness becomes public
That is what destroys the marriage, when it becomes public.
Then all of a sudden, it just can't be fixed.
And it's, you know, just over for a lot of people, okay?
And that's just the most extreme example,
but there are lots of other,
more minor marriage problems, aren't there?
That you still wouldn't want to be public,
and when those things become public,
then it becomes a lot harder to reconcile.
And here's the thing about separation, is just by very nature, if two people get separated,
everybody's going to notice that.
Everybody's going to see that, and now all of a sudden, the whole world knows that there's a problem.
Because you know what, what if I told you that there are probably a lot of people that we interact with all the time
that are having serious marriage problems and we don't know it at all, we just think everything's fine
because that's just between them and they have problems and we don't know about them.
You know, I don't want to know about all your worst moments and all your problems,
you don't want to know about all my problems and that, you know, it's just everybody's got stuff going on
and here's the thing, you might not know about it, but once people get separated,
then it becomes this big public thing.
And not only that, not only does that make it harder
for people to reconcile when their dirty laundry
gets aired publicly.
Another thing is that when that happens,
you'll have all these little shoulder devils
coming out of the woodwork.
As soon as they get separated,
then you're gonna have all these people talking
in their ear like, oh, you need to stay away from him
or you need to stay, don't go back to her.
You need to stay, or how about this,
other interested parties can come along.
and kind of put out a feeler saying well hey if things don't work out between you and your husband
things don't work out between you and your wife you know
kind of letting them know that they have some options you think this doesn't happen
you think this isn't real let me tell you something it's very real and when people get separated
now all of a sudden there it's a dress rehearsal for being divorced
It's practice you're practicing being divorced and you know what a lot of people they're gonna get separated
They're gonna start getting used to the idea of being a part and they're gonna start thinking okay
Maybe I could do this and here's the thing you know a lot of what keeps people from doing stupid things in our society is shame
Am I right shame?
You know some people are like they don't do really bad things because they don't want to be
Exposed or embarrassed or humiliated
But here's what happens people get separated and then everybody starts cheerleading them
Being separated and now all of a sudden they're thinking oh, well, I could get divorced
I can just leave my spouse and just keep going to my church and
Everybody's just gonna act like it's fine and my pastor's gonna back me up as I just you know
Abandoned my spouse and I can just keep all my friends and keep everything in fact
There's this other guy that's interested or this other gal that's interested or what you know what I mean depending on the gender
And so you can see how this is just a stepping stone
getting you closer to divorce.
And these hypocrite old IFB pastors say,
oh, I don't counsel divorce,
but I do counsel separation sometimes.
They're phonies, okay?
It's wrong.
It's false doctrine.
It's bad advice.
And look, you know, I've seen it my whole life, unfortunately.
and I've fought it my whole life.
I mean, long before I was a pastor, I was fighting this.
I was fighting this as a young man
when people in my personal life were getting divorced
or on the verge of divorce, I would go to them
and plead with them and beg them
and show them what the Bible says.
And I have been fighting this from before I was even a pastor
and I fought it for 20 years of pastoring.
And if you think that I am ever gonna back down
one millimeter on this subject,
You didn't even know me when I was 15. You didn't even know me when I was 18
You didn't know me when I was 20. This is who I am
This is who I am
I'm not one of these guys
Oh, well, you know, let me, let me orchestrate my exit from the new IFB and figure out, you know, how I can really stick it to Pastor Anderson or change my doctrine over here or, you know, do my little political whatever.
Hey, homie, don't play that. All right? I am who I am. I care what the Bible says. I'd rather die than preach lies.
I'd rather die than preach this feminist junk.
I'd rather stop pastoring.
I would rather run off every single memory.
I'd rather be like Jesus when he preached in John chapter 6,
and everybody leaves except, he's preaching to thousands of people.
Everybody leaves except 12 people.
And he's like, hey, you guys want to leave too?
Because there's the door.
That's where I'm at.
For me the whole point of pastoring is getting up and preaching what the Bible says
Unfiltered raw unadulterated uncensored. That's the point
Okay, as soon as somebody takes that away from me me being a pastor becomes
Meaningless and pointless and I'm done the same day
I'm done
As soon as I can't preach the whole Bible. I'm out
You understand that that's that's the only reason I'm even here
I don't even like why am I even preaching to preach the stuff that other people won't preach
Otherwise, I have no purpose for pastor. I might as well just eat drink and be married
That's where I'm at friend
You know some people like that some people appreciate that and some people also care what the Bible says
don't want to play political games
with people's lives or the Bible.
But let's hurry up and see if we can just get a little further
in this passage tonight here.
It says in verse 10 of 1 Corinthians 7,
unto the married I command, yet not I but the Lord,
let not the wife depart from her husband.
But, and if she depart, not saying that there's any permission for that,
it's just addressing the reality that that's what people...
It's like in the Old Testament when the Bible says, if a man has two wives, right?
Is somebody want to stand up and argue for men having two wives? No.
God just understands the realities of the world that we live in, that these things happen,
and then you have to deal with them after they happen.
Okay, that's what the Bible's talking about here.
A man has a slave.
If he beats the crap out of his slave and knocks his tooth, is God saying that they should do those things?
No, it's just saying, this is a real situation that's going to come up,
so we have to deal with it when it comes up.
Not permission.
No, the commandment from God is, don't depart from your husband, don't put away your wife.
So it says here, but to the rest, so that's what God says.
If she departs, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband and let not the husband put away his wife.
But to the rest speak I,
not the Lord.
Now people debate this, but you know, I just believe what the Bible says that this is not the Lord talking here.
Call me crazy, but that's what it says.
But to the recipe guy, not the Lord, if any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with them, let him not put her away."
So now he's kind of just giving his opinion, saying, look, this isn't something that is commanded by God or was commanded by God, like not getting divorced for any reason, it's clearly commanded by God.
Okay, you know, and obviously, yeah, there's the thing about like, oh, except it'd be for fornication because that's talking about
You know when they find it went when they get married and you know
The wife had portrayed herself as a virgin and she turns out not to be a virgin ever
That's all addressed in the book of Deuteronomy and you know, we're not gonna open that can of worms tonight
But it says here
If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him,
let him not put her away.
And the woman which hath a husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her,
let her not leave him.
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.
Elsewhere your children unclean, but now are they holy.
But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart.
A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases.
But God has called us to peace for what knowest thou, O wife,
whether thou shalt save thy husband?
Or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?
Right, so you have this kind of logical argument
that Paul is using here.
A logical argument for why
Even if you're unbelieving spouse, you know
You know isn't saved and whatever how you should stay with them. You should not divorce them for any reason
You know, but that if they leave you
Have the option of letting them leave
And he's giving a logical explanation for that and saying, you know,
God has caused a peace or whatever.
So he gives his opinion about some things throughout this chapter.
And then at the end he says, you know, this is my opinion,
but I think that I also have the spirit of God like he said,
I think that what I am saying expresses what God wants.
Okay. At the end, he's saying, look, I think God agrees with everything I'm saying,
especially what he's saying.
He's saying, this is not coming from God, this particular part.
This is my opinion, but I think I also have the spirit of God.
You know, saying like, I'm pretty sure that this goes along with
the spirit of the law, the spirit of what Christ has commanded.
Does everybody understand what we mean by the spirit in that context, right?
Because there's the letter of the law, then there's the spirit of the law.
Here's the letter of the law. Don't get divorced.
Don't depart from your husband, you know, and it's not don't depart unless something bad happens
Folks who leaves their spouse when things are good?
It's just like well, yeah, but unless unless it's bad if it weren't bad nobody be leaving
People don't leave good situations
They leave bad situations and God says no you need to stay with it and fix it
You need to stay and keep going, and push through, and endure.
Charity, endure with all things.
But here's what's funny, is that people will ignore the part where he says,
this is God commanding this, not me, this is God.
Don't leave.
They'll ignore that part and jump to the part where he's like,
okay, let me give you my opinion.
And then they'll try to use that to contradict the part that God said.
That's crazy the part that God said is set in stone
The part that the apostle Paul says I don't believe there's any contradiction with what Paul saying and what God said anyway
I agree with Paul that he has the spirit of God
and that what he is saying is in the spirit of what Christ taught anyway.
I do not think for one second that the apostle Paul is wrong.
So why does the Bible include this thing of, well, to the rest speak I, not the Lord?
I guess he just wants the bone heads out there
not to take the part that Paul is saying and try to pit it against what God said.
So Paul is like saying, hey,
Put this on the top shelf
What God says and then here's what I'm saying and I think it lines up perfectly with what God said
But you know realize that this is what God said this one
I mean, it's like I get up and preach for an hour
Isn't every single sermon I preach a mix of what God said and a mix of what I think about what God said
Am I putting am I giving my opinion at times in the sermon?
There's never a sermon where I'm not going to give my opinion at some point.
Every preacher is going to give his opinion at some point in the sermon,
but then he's also giving the Word of God.
Now, here's the thing, in a good sermon, there's no contradiction
between the pastor's opinion and the Word of God,
and they both coexist, and they both work together,
and you get what you need.
But at the end of the day,
if part of the sermon is straight out of God's Word,
and part of it's an opinion, which part has more authority?
God's Word and so the Apostle Paul is trying to tell us here look God has said
this concrete thing over here that's what you need to base everything on and
then what I'm saying is just complimenting that and you know if you feel
like what I'm saying is contradicting what God said go with what God said
that's what Paul's saying you listening he's saying if you feel that what I'm
saying is contradicting what God said then go with what God said
That's why he's saying that and yet you have people out there today
totally ignoring verses 10 and 11 and jumping down to verse 15 and just running with verse 15
But if the unbelieving depart let me tell you something if I had a nickel for every time a saved person
Said if the unbelieving depart let him depart about another saved person. I would be a wealthy man
What part of unbelieving do you not understand?
Here's what's funny, is that you have two Christians married.
To each other, right? I mean look look around the room. Look at all the married couples are on the room, right?
You guys you guys are both Christians both save both believers
Okay, so so is first Corinthians 715 ever going to apply to you ever for any are you guys both saved both Chris?
Will first Corinthians 715 ever in any way ever apply to either of you? How about you?
Saved? Saved? Is 1 Corinthians 715 ever, you know, I mean, do we need to go around to every person in the room and explain to you,
1 Corinthians 715 will never apply to you because you're both saved and you can't lose your salvation.
So what the heck are we talking about?
When his wife left him, you know what Ken Hovind said?
Well, the Bible says, if the unbelieving depart, let it depart.
Since when was Ken Hovind's, and I know there's a lot of wives ago,
but if you can remember back that far, since when was Ken Hovind's first wife not saved?
I mean, is the claim even being made that she wasn't saved?
We all know she was saved.
Everybody believed she was saved. Nobody ever said, I never heard Ken Hovind say, my wife wasn't saved.
No, but they just they just quote this verse
It's like are you even listening to the words that are coming up if the what if the unbelieving depart is this talking about saved Christians?
Can it ever in any situation?
Be applied to a saved Christian
Never and yet I have seen it applied that way
Scores of times even in the last 12 months
Like I said, I'd be a wealthy man if I didn't go for every time people abused this scripture
You know, if I could have like an app on my phone giving me a nickel,
every time someone in the world quoted First Corinthians 715 about a saved person,
it would just be like,
If the unbelieving depart, let him depart, a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases,
but God has called us to peace, it's saying that you don't have to try to fight and beg and force them to stay.
If they're an unsaved person leaving you because you're saved and they don't want to be married to a Christian
and so they leave you because of that issue and they're not saved.
And the Bible's still not saying that you can go marry someone else, it's just saying you can just let them go.
and just let go at that point.
But then people will use this to justify
divorce and remarriage of two saved Christians.
Can somebody explain this to me, please?
And you know what, I heard one of them say this.
Here's what one person said.
Well, when it says unbelieving,
it doesn't mean they don't believe in Jesus.
It means they don't believe in the marriage.
I mean, the things that people come up with,
they come up with some wild things, don't they?
Then well what that means is they don't believe they've lost faith in the marriage the
Unbeliever because they don't believe in the marriage anymore
Well, I'm pretty sure every single person who gets divorced doesn't believe in the marriage anymore
Isn't that you know why they're getting divorced, but here's what's so dumb about that is that it literally says
in this context it says
the woman which hath unhusband look at verse 13 and we'll end on this but
The woman which hath the husband that believe it not and if he be pleased to dwell with her let her not leave him
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband
Elsewhere your children unclean, but now are they holy?
How would that make any sense if we're talking about someone who doesn't believe in the marriage?
We're talking about the saved Christian being sanctified
because they're holy, we're talking about salvation.
spiritual salvation and what we're talking about is the fact that you know at
least if one parent is saved and you have a man and a woman and they're
raising the children and at least one of them is saved there are a lot of
situations where you'll have one person saved and one person isn't and they can
still raise the kids to be saved and believe in Jesus and and you know at
least they're still growing up with Christianity on one side and they're
But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart, a brother or a sister is not under bondage
in such cases, but God has caused peace.
For what notice thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?
Or how notice thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?
So notice that being the unbeliever is also connected with being unsaved.
Does everybody see that?
The unbeliever needs to get saved because it's not that they don't believe in the marriage that they don't believe in Jesus, right?
They don't believe in Jesus, so they need to get saved.
Now, you know, how would it be salvation to start believing the marriage?
Again, it's just people who don't care what the Bible says and they want to make the Bible fit their situation.
You know, what we need to do is we need to make our situation fit the Bible.
instead of making the Bible fit our situation.
And you know what, look, I understand that people are human
and people are sinful and that all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God.
I understand that nobody's perfect.
And look, we've all made mistakes in life.
I've made mistakes, you've made mistakes.
We will continue.
There's not a just man upon the earth
that doeth good and sineth not.
But let me tell you something.
You know, if you're gonna go out and sin,
if you're gonna go out and do wrong, you know what?
Don't try to justify your sin
and drag other people into it with you.
Right and look I understand we have a lot of divorcees in our church, and I'm not I'm not mad at you
I'm not here to chastise you or
Criticize your past or fight you because you know what you can't change the past right all you can do is just do right going forward
Not negative toward you. I'm not down on you
Okay, I'm preaching to the people that are married that they stay married
And I'm preaching to the singles that they when they get married they realize is till death do us part
Okay, I'm not I'm not down on the people that are divorced, but you know what you have is these divorced people though
They want other people to get divorced
That for the same reason why Eve when she eats the forbidden fruit first thing she does is try to get somebody else to eat it too
Right because it made Eve feel better if she can get Adam to eat it too
You know, and look, if I were Eve, human, it's a little scary
when you're the only one that ate the fruit,
because then maybe God's just going to smoke you
and just make another woman or something
and just replace bro's wife.
Whereas...
You know, if he can get him to eat too, it's like, okay, now all humanity's damned.
Now what?
It's sort of like when I was in school, you know, and the teacher didn't show up after
a few minutes, and I was the kid who tried to talk everybody into leaving and going to
the playground.
And I said, hey, we should just all go to the playground and just do recess until she
gets here.
And here's what I said.
She can't punish us all.
Right?
Right, then the whole world did it
But let me tell you something that is a sinful mentality
And you know what?
Virtually every time you have people getting separated or divorced, you know what you have you've got a you got a divorced parent cheerleading them
Right wife leaves her husband her divorced mom is saying oh, yeah, you go girl
And you need you know and or even you know the other way around if the guy leaves his wife
You know you could have divorced parents cheerleading him
And you know what? Here's the thing, my parents are divorced and my wife's parents are divorced, right?
So statistically, you know, we would be supposedly very likely to get divorced, right?
Just statistically speaking, you know what? But we're not going to get divorced.
Because you know what? We can do all things through Christ.
And we don't want to get divorced anyway because we love each other and we're happy.
But here's the thing, even if we were at a low point, we still wouldn't get divorced.
Because we respect the sanctity of this union and here's the thing though
Is that you got parents out there and look it?
Let's say you're divorced don't you ever
Cheerlead your kid getting a divorce if your kids getting separated of course you know you should be saying hey
I was wrong when I got divorced don't make that mistake. I shouldn't have done that. I didn't do it
You know better. I didn't know better. You do know better or I made a mistake
It doesn't mean you have to fall in the same mistake
But you get all kinds of look that's the thing when you have the little trial separation all the little divorcees come out of the woodwork
You know, I'm pretty sure that I saw an advertisement for a movie one time
It's like divorced wives club or ex-wives club or so, you know, I don't know if that's a real movie
I might have just dreamed that but I thought I saw you know, I didn't obviously I didn't watch that stupid crap
But I'm sure there's something out there like that
You know, a bunch of these just crusty women getting together and just moaning about the ex-husbands or whatever.
I don't know.
But I didn't have to see the movie because I've seen it in real life.
Don't fall for it, my friend.
Let's get a Biblical marriage based on the Word of God, and don't give up on marriage.
Don't give up on God's institution, don't give up on your marriage in particular,
and don't give up on the institution of marriage in general. Amen.
Spirits and our word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word.
We thank you so much for a clear teaching of your word, Lord.
And I pray that you would just stop the mouths of these fools that preach lies,
or that they would get right with you, and that they would preach the truth on this subject, Lord.
And I pray that our culture would shift
to a culture that honors you in this respect of marriage.
And Lord, help us as Christians,
no matter what the culture does,
help us to do it your way
and not listen to the heathen tell us how to have our marriage.
And in Jesus' name we pray amen.
Amen. Lastly, let's turn in our hymnals over to song number 308.
Song number 308, I surrender all.
This is all to Jesus I surrender all to him I freely give song number 308 sing it out on the first
I surrender all.
All to thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
All to Jesus, I surrender all.