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Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, everybody, welcome to Pure Words Baptist Church. Let's go ahead and take our seats and pull out our hymnals. We're going to start off tonight with song 405, The Banner of the Cross. And if everybody could do me a favor, if you have any extra seats in your row, try to like scoot to the inside. That way we have the outside seats available. And if you're by yourself, if you could help us build any chairs or just like one person, that way we can make sure we fit all the families together. 405, The Banner of the Cross. All together on the first. There's a royal banner given for display To the soldiers of the key There's an inside where we lift it up today While those ransomed ones we see Marching on, marching on For Christ count everything the loss And to crown him king, toil and sing Meet the banner of the cross Though the bold may rage and gather as above Let the standard be displayed And beneath its bones as soldiers of the Lord For the truth be not displayed Marching on, marching on For Christ count everything the loss And to crown him king, toil and sing Meet the banner of the cross Over land and sea wherever may rage well Make the glorious tidings known Of the crimson banner now the story tell While the Lord shall claim his own Marching on, marching on For Christ count everything the loss And to crown him king, toil and sing Meet the banner of the cross When the glory dawns, his joy can vary here It is hasting day by day Thanked before our King, the food shall disappear And the cross the world shall sway Marching on, marching on For Christ count everything the loss And to crown him king, toil and sing Meet the banner of the cross Man sounds so good having everybody singing Brother James can you lead us in prayer Father God in heaven can you lead us in prayer Do you show us your spirit in heaven In heaven can you lead us in prayer Do you show us your spirit in heaven In heaven can you lead us in prayer Amen Next up is song number 257 Look and Live That's how easy salvation is, just look and live Song 257, sing all together on the first I've a message from the Lord Hallelujah The message unto you I'll give Is recorded in his Word Hallelujah It is only that you look and live Look and live my brother live Look to Jesus now and live Is recorded in his Word Hallelujah It is only that you look and live I've a message from above Hallelujah A message oh my friend for you Is a message from above Hallelujah Jesus and I know it is true Look and live my brother live Look to Jesus now and live Is recorded in his Word Hallelujah It is only that you look and live Life is offered unto you Hallelujah Eternal life the soul shall have If you'll only look to him Hallelujah Look to Jesus who alone can't save Look and live my brother live Look to Jesus now and live Is recorded in his Word Hallelujah It is only that you look and live I will tell you how I came Hallelujah To Jesus when he made me whole Was believing in his name Hallelujah I trusted and he saved my soul Look and live my brother live Look to Jesus now and live Is recorded in his Word Hallelujah It is only that you look and live Amen. Great singing. At this time we'll go through our announcements. If you need a bulletin, raise up your hand. Brother Eli, Brother James can grab one for you. On the front, you'll notice we're working on Psalm chapter 16. This is our Bible memory chapter. Anybody that can quote the whole chapter Word by word perfect, you can receive a special prize. Any child, if you can do the verse of the week, you can come back on Thursdays and redeem an ice cream cone. We're really making you work for it this week because this is a tough verse. You kids aren't going to be able to skate by. You've got to start now if you want it. On the inside of our bulletin, we have our service time. Sunday mornings are at 1030. Sunday evenings are at 530. Thursdays are Bible studies at 7. We have our church-wide zoning times listed there below. Were there any salvations to report that did not get added yet? Did we get all the ones from this afternoon? Twelve. Twelve. Amen. That's great. Twelve plus the one from this morning, so praise the Lord for that. Please be in prayer for our expecting ladies listed there below. Magdalena Hernandez had her baby boy Santiago Mateo. He was born seven pounds, one ounce, and nineteen inches long. So congratulations to the Hernandez family. It's super exciting for them. And then upcoming events. You made it. Pastor Anderson is preaching for us tonight. So thank you for everybody showing up. We're super excited to have him back here preaching. Next week, it's not in the bulletin, but we're going to do a soul-wanting marathon on Saturday. It's going to be the normal what we do. We'll meet here at 10 for breakfast, go out, come back for lunch, and we'll send you back out. So if you'd like to participate in that, just show up, and we'll get some souls saved. Amen? And then July 29th, we're going to do a men's preaching night at 6 p.m. You don't have to sign up. You can just show up. It's essentially any man who wants to preach. If you want to let me know, that might be helpful. But essentially, just prepare a five, 10-minute long sermon. It doesn't matter the topic. And we'll do a little men's preaching night to help the men just learn their preaching skills. After that, the Mighty Men's Retreat coming up in August, and the Firebreathing Baptist Fellowship as well. We have our prayer requests listed there below. If you could just please keep these people in your prayers throughout the week. If you have any requests, email the church. We'll get you added to that. And we have our church reminders listed there below as well. Just please don't let your kids be running anytime, anywhere around the building. Please don't let them be playing up on the stage. We do have a mother and baby room if you need to take your children back there, essentially to help train them, so just please make use of the facility. And we are going to have ice cream after the service tonight, so stick around for ice cream. And we have a couple more baptisms as well, so stick around after the service. If anybody else needs to get baptized, the water's ready. We have clothes if you need to change, so just let me know before or after the service. We can get you baptized as well. And then I think that's all I have for announcements. So I've been doing some Bible trivia for all the kids, okay? And so the rules are, if you know it, the answer, just shout it out, okay? Because if I can't hear you, you're not going to get your prize. And you can only get one candy per service, so if you get your candy, just hush up and let one of the other children answer, all right? So first question, this is from a few sermons a couple weeks ago. Who said, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering? Isaac. Isaac, yeah. Good job. Thank you. Oh. All right, can anybody tell me what does the word testament mean? Promise. Promise. I'll take promise, covenant. If you don't like your candies, you can exchange them after the service, just so you all know. All right, which chapter in 1 Corinthians is known as the love chapter? 13. 13. Oh, I think he barely beat you over here. It's tough competition. These kids know the Bible. All right, which Old Testament book tells us about the life of Abraham? Genesis. Genesis, all right. Oh, we got it? All right, I'll give you an easy one. Who swallowed Jonah? You all said it at like the same time, so. Candies for all. I think he said it too. All right, good job kids. Thank you for participating. So with that, we'll go to our third song. It's going to be song 162, To God Be the Glory. Song number 162. All together. To God be the glory Great things He hath done So loved in the world That He gave us His Son Who healed in His life And atoned Him for sin And opened the life In that all may go in Praise the Lord, praise the Lord Let the earth hear His voice Praise the Lord, praise the Lord Let the people rejoice Now come to the Father Through Jesus the Son And give Him the glory Great things He hath done O perfect redemption The purchase of God To every believer The promise of God The vilest avenger Who truly believes That moment from Jesus Aparted receives Praise the Lord, praise the Lord Let the earth hear His voice Praise the Lord, praise the Lord Let the people rejoice Now come to the Father Through Jesus the Son And give Him the glory Great things He hath done Great things He hath done Great things He hath done And pray our rejoicing Through Jesus the Son The pure and higher And greater will be Our wonder, our transform When Jesus be seen Praise the Lord, praise the Lord Let the earth hear His voice Praise the Lord, praise the Lord Let the people rejoice Now come to the Father Through Jesus the Son And give Him the glory Great things He hath done Amen. As the offering plate is being passed around, please take out your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter number 5. 1 Timothy chapter 5. And the Bible reads, Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren, the elder women as mothers, the youngers as sisters, with all purity. Honor widows that are widows indeed, but if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents, for that is good and acceptable before God. Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day. But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth, and these things give in charge, that they may be blameless. But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man, well reported of for good works, if she hath brought up children, if she hath lodged strangers, if she hath watched the saints' feet, if she hath relied and relieved the afflicted, if she hath diligently followed every good work, but the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation because they have cast off their first faith. And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speaking reproachfully, for some are already turned aside after Satan. If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged, that it may relieve them that are widows indeed. Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine, for the Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and a laborer is worthy of his reward. Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses. Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear. I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other man's sins, keep thyself pure. Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities. Some men's sins are opened beforehand, going before to judgment, and some they follow after. Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand, and they that are otherwise cannot be hid. Let's pray. Father God in heaven, thank you so much for this chapter in the Bible. Thank you for your word and your truth. Please fill Pastor Anderson with the Holy Spirit to preach your word boldly, and please fill us with your spirit to receive the message he's prepared for us in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen, great to be here once again. Tonight we're in 1 Timothy chapter number 5, and the part of the chapter that I want to focus in on is the part that has to do with women as widows, as mothers, being married, and so forth, because we're living in a time where feminism is just considered the norm in this country, in America, and the type of beliefs that we would have about men's roles and women's roles would be seen as antiquated or old-fashioned. Being from the Bible, but today it's the world that has gone crazy, and we need to renew our mind by looking into the word of God and see what he has to say about gender roles. You see, we've all grown up with all of the media and all the things in our culture and society influencing us. We've all been influenced by it, okay? And we need to go to the word of God to hit a reset button and get our mind right, get our attitude right, get our understanding right about all things, but especially on this area of gender and what is God's will for men and women respectively. Now, here's the thing. A lot of people will try to tell this lie that somehow the Bible is disrespectful toward women or negative toward women, or they'll use this word misogynistic, okay? And the word misogynistic literally means woman hating. That miso prefix means hating, okay? It's actually a Greek prefix, and so misogynist means hateful toward women. Look, the Bible is not hateful toward women whatsoever. In fact, this very chapter that's laying down some things that our world would consider really anti-feminist and misogynistic, I mean, look in verse number three. It says honor widows that are widows indeed. So right here we're talking about honoring women, okay? And all throughout the Bible, women are honored and exalted and lifted up. They just have a different role than men. Now, there's a religion out there that is super misogynistic. It's called Islam, okay? Islam is hateful toward women. It's very negative. If you read Islamic literature, it's just this attitude that women are just out to commit adultery every chance they can get. That's why we got to lock them up, and we got to dress them in a ninja suit and cover their face, cover their head, just give them a little slit to look out of and just stick them in the harem, and let's marry them off to some old dude. Let's marry them off four at a time, and you can have four wives and everything. Look, that's garbage. That's mistreating women. That's hateful toward women. The Bible actually exalts women, and you can actually live a happy, blessed life by following the Bible and getting God's plan for your life as a woman. Now, the world has a totally different program for you as a woman. You know, they want you out there just living like a man, basically. They want you to dress like a man, talk like a man, act like a man, go out and have a career that a man would have. I mean, that's their plan for your life, and if you really want to make the world happy, if you want the world to look at you and say, wow, you're a successful woman. Just go out and live like a man. Do everything that a man does, and that's how you'll have success in the world's eyes. But is that really going to make you happy? But more importantly, is it going to make God happy? Is it God's will for your life? What does God say about His will for women's lives? Well, we could jump down to verse 14 and get God's will right away. It says, I will, therefore, that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, for some are already turned aside after Satan. Now, look, the Bible couldn't really be much clearer than it is in this verse. If you're a young woman and you're trying to figure out God's will for your life, it's right here. Now, you say, well, I have other plans. Okay, well, then you have other plans, but, you know, we're in church. We're here to talk about God's plan, God's will for your life. God's will for your life is that you marry bear children and guide the house and give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. Don't give the enemies of the Lord, don't give the enemies of Christianity an excuse to talk bad about Christianity because of your poor testimony and your poor example, right? Marry bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. You know, this is what little girls should be taught growing up, that this is where life is heading for you, okay? Not like, hey, you're going to be a marine biologist, you know. You're going to be the President of the United States. You know, no, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says, I will, therefore, that women be an astronaut. No, he said they would marry bear children and guide the house. Look, I didn't write the Bible. And some people will be offended by this or think, oh, I can't believe this. But what does the Bible say, my friend? We've all been brainwashed. We've all been influenced by this world out there that somehow degrades the idea of a woman being a stay-at-home wife or a stay-at-home mother when in reality those are honorable, glorious things for a woman to do with her life. Don't let the world try to downplay the importance of being a stay-at-home wife or a stay-at-home mother. And this world would act like you're not out there reaching your full potential. Hey, you are reaching your full potential as a wife and mother if that's what God wills for your life. And by the way, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. You know, that's a powerful job, being a wife and a mother. And you don't have to live your life to please other people and show your relatives or show your friends or show society how smart you are and how successful you can be. You know what? You can be super smart and super successful and still follow God's plan for your life and still just do that job in the home that God has called women to do. And it's a critical, important job. And listen, there's not enough of it today in our world. There aren't enough godly stay-at-home wives and mothers raising godly children, raising the next generation. So we have a generation growing up that curses their father and does not bless their mother. We have a generation growing up that's getting away from the Lord, that's turning away from Christ. Hey, we need godly parents raising their children to serve the Lord. It's important. Now, backing up to the beginning of the chapter, you know, he talks a little bit about elders throughout this chapter as well. The elder is synonymous with the pastor. That's a subject that he's going to come back to later in the chapter. But in verse number three, he says, Honor widows that are widows indeed. But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents, for that is good and acceptable before God. Now, you have to be careful with the word nephew because when the Bible was translated into English, the word nephew meant something different. So this is not what we think of as a nephew. This is actually a grandson. If you look up nephew in an old dictionary, this is one of those words that has changed in meaning since 1611, and it's an archaic word. It really means grandson, okay? But because today when we say nephew, we think like, oh, you know, this is my nephew, Logan, and I'm his uncle. But that's not what the Bible is saying. That's why it says if she has children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents. So what this is really saying is, you know, if they have children or grandchildren, and if you look this up in an older English dictionary or in a modern English dictionary, it'll tell you, hey, archaic definition for nephew is grandson. And that's what it means in the context. That's what this verse means. So you're off the hook for taking care of aunts and uncles, but you got to take care of your parents and grandparents, according to the Bible, okay? And so what is this saying when it says, you know, let them requite their parents? It's saying that mothers and fathers have made sacrifices for their children. They've worked hard. They've raised their children. And so your mother, because of the role that she played in your life, raising you and caring for you, when she gets old and let's say her husband passes away and she's a widow, you owe her to take care of her and not just be like, well, sorry, mom, I'm going to leave you high and dry. I got my own problems. I got my own things to deal with. No, the Bible says that you should learn first to show piety at home. You know, you're going to church and you're so spiritual at church. Hey, why don't you show some of that religion at home by actually being a godly son or daughter or a godly grandson or granddaughter and requiting your parents? That is good and acceptable before God. That's the kind of Christianity God's looking for, is for you to show piety at home. And so this shows that God looks at the work that women do in the home, raising children, taking care of the house. He respects that work. He honors that. He says that we should honor that. We should honor those widows who have children and nephews, but their children and nephews should really be the ones honoring them because they're the recipients of their hard work. Now it says in verse 5, Now she that is a widow indeed and desolate trusteth in God and continueth in supplications of prayers night and day, but she that liveth in pleasures dead while she liveth. And these things give in charge that they may be blameless, but if any provide not for his own, especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man. So here's what the Bible is saying. Let me break this down to you. It's saying that we need to take care of our own family. That's our responsibility as men. We need to go out and work and provide for our family and when our parents get old, if they need help, we need to provide for them too. We need to help out mom when she gets old and she's on her own and so forth. And the Bible says if we don't provide for those of our own house, we're worse than an infidel. You know, the Bible just says it's so shameful not to take care of that. And then it says, Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old. What does that mean, be taken into the number? What the Bible's talking about here is the church actually supporting widows who have no income, right? So you've got a widow woman and she has no income. She needs somebody to take care of her when she's old. I mean, old lady, you know, her husband has died, she's old, she's 70, 80 years old and, you know, who does she turn to? Well, she's supposed to turn to her children and grandchildren to take care of her. But if they're not there to take care of her, if they're refusing to take care of her, then the church would take care of her, the Bible's saying, you know, if there's no one for her. But she has to be at least threescore years old. She has to be at least 60 years old having been the wife of one man. So the Bible is saying, yes, the church is there to relieve widows, to take them into the number of those that are on the church's payroll or dole or, you know, getting cared for. But it's for women who don't have children or nephews. That's why it said in verse 3, honor widows that are widows indeed, but if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first. Let them take care of it, right? If we jump down to verse number 16, we'll see the same thing. It says in verse 16, if any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, let not the church be charged, that it may relieve them that are widows indeed. So it's saying, look, don't burden the church's finances by taking care of widows that should already be taken care of by their sons and their grandsons and so forth. But if there's indeed a widow who has been the wife of one man, she's over 60 years old, she's born children, she's not all these things, but she has no one to take care of her for whatever reason, then the church would relieve her. Now, this would be a very rare scenario because if a woman has brought up children and done all these things, then her children are going to take care of her. So it's extremely rare that a church would ever actually end up needing to care for widows because of the fact that it's such a specific scenario where they're over 60, they've been married, they had kids, they raised kids, but somehow they just have no one to take care of them, right? Now, if you remember in the book of Acts, chapter number 6, there was a situation where the church was just taking care of tons of widows and it was just like a full-time job, just taking care of all these widows, and they had to hire a bunch of deacons to take care of all the widows, and then the widows are fighting, like, I'm not getting enough attention, and these widows, and that's why the Apostle Paul is like, look, we're not just going to pay for every widow, okay? It's only this one scenario. But that's not really what the sermon's about. What I'm trying to show, though, is that God does value the work that women do, and the Bible does lay out a plan for what a woman's life should look like, ideally, in a perfect world, right? Because look at the qualifications for being the widow that's cared for by the church. It says she has to be three score years old. That's 60 years old. And then it says in verse 10, well reported of for good works, if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints' feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work. So this is ideally what a woman's life looks like, according to the Bible, right? According to the Bible, the ideal life for a woman is, verse 14, that she marry, bear children, and guide the house, right? And then, in verse 10, it's that she do good works, that she bring up children, that she would lodge strangers or show hospitality, that she would wash the saints' feet, relieve the afflicted, and diligently follow every good work. You know, this doesn't say anything about going out and having a career and having to go live the life that men live and dressing and acting and talking like men. No, this is a godly plan for a woman to get married, raise her children, serve in the local church, do good things for people, help people relieve the afflicted, help the poor, lodge strangers, show hospitality. This is a good life for women to live. Now, it says in verse 11, but the younger widows refuse for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation because they have cast off their first faith. And with all they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. Now, what is the Bible saying here? If a widow, if a woman is less than 60 years old and her husband dies, the Bible says that she should not be cared for by the church because she should get married. She should get remarried, you know? So if my wife were to lose me tomorrow and she were to be a widow, well, then God's will for her is that she marry someone else because she's under 60 years old, okay? And so the Bible says, refuse the younger widows. Why? Because he doesn't want them to get to be idle, wandering about from house to house, tattlers also and busybodies. So what's he saying? He's saying that, you know, women should be busy about the right things so that they don't get tempted to get caught up in the mischief of gossip and tattling and being a busybody and wandering around from house to house. Now, today, maybe women don't wander physically from house to house, but this could be just fooling around online all day or just watching soap operas or just hanging on the phone and gossiping and just, you know, being a busybody, getting involved in everybody's drama and when there's no drama to get involved in, you could create some drama to get involved in. And so the Bible is saying that women who are younger than 60 years old, they should get married and they should continue their homemaking and stay busy with that and not to just sit around and just retire from homemaking at that early age. He said he doesn't want them to be wandering about from house to house, idle, tattlers, et cetera. He would rather that they marry, bear children and guide the house. Now, this is a little bit of a confusing passage, so let me break it down to you because it says, when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation because they have cast off their first faith. Now, first of all, we see the word damnation. You don't want to misunderstand this. He's not saying that they're going to hell, okay? Because the word damnation is synonymous with the word condemnation and it's not necessarily talking about going to hell. It's just talking about being condemned. It just means that they're guilty. It just means that they're in sin, right? And so the condemnation here is because of the fact that they will eventually, he's saying, look, the younger widows, when they've begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry. There's nothing wrong with them getting married. In fact, they were supposed to get married in the first place to avoid all of this. But the point is that if they stay single for a long time, they have the propensity to get into trouble and to get idle and they don't have anything to do with their lives godly. So they end up just kind of getting caught up in gossip and worldliness and sinful things. And then eventually they're going to get married anyway, he says. But now they've already done all this damage to their life. They've already stopped going to church and stopped serving God and whatever. So it would be smarter to just skip all that and just get married and just stay busy serving your husband, serving your children, taking care of those things, guiding the house so that they don't get in this habit. They don't learn to be idle, learn to be a busybody, learn to be a tattler. You see, women who actually take their job seriously of being a stay-at-home wife or a stay-at-home mother, they end up being pretty busy and not having time for a lot of the nonsense of this world. And here's the thing. We as men, we're supposed to stay busy, too, doing our jobs. And if we did not stay busy doing our jobs, if we didn't go to work every day and wear ourselves out doing something productive, we'd get into trouble, too. It's not like the Bible's not this woman-hating book that's basically just saying, oh, man, these women, they're out of control. You got to stick them in the home so they keep them out of trouble. Here's what the Bible is saying. We got to go to work to keep us out of trouble. And then the women got to be busy to keep them out of trouble. The Bible just teaches that human beings are going to get into trouble. It's not that women are going to get into trouble more than men. It's that all of us are prone to get into trouble. Human beings are mischievous creatures. And so it's not a woman versus man thing. Men will get into trouble just as much as women. Men would go out and commit adultery just as much as women. Men would go out and commit fornication just as much as women. Men would go out and get involved in sin just as much, maybe different sins, but we're all sinners. We all have that sinful nature. We all have the flesh. We all deal with temptations. And so God wants to keep us busy about the right things so that we don't get into trouble. You know, you think about King David. He was supposed to be going out to war in 1 Samuel 11, but instead of going to war, which is what his job was as the king, he just sends Joab and he just stays home. And then he's just up in the middle of the night bored. Now here's the thing. If you work hard all day, you're not up in the middle of the night bored. Your sleep is sweet unto you. You're looking forward to hitting that pillow and you're exhausted and you want to go to sleep. You're not up walking around on the roof of your house in the middle of the night. You're in bed. You're sleeping a deep sleep. But people who don't work, people who are just sitting around bored, they get into trouble. And so David, he goes up on the roof and he's just bored. Then he looks out and he sees a woman bathing. And instead of going, oh man, I shouldn't have seen that, he just keeps on feasting his eyes. Then he calls and figures out that she's the wife of another man. Well, at that point, he should know this woman's off limits. But instead, he commits adultery with Bathsheba, ends up wrecking his life, wrecking the lives of the people around him. And the big part of why this even happened was because he was idle. And an idle mind is the devil's workshop. And so that's what the Bible's warning about here. It's not just for women, it's all people. But men would go out and work. That's our natural habitat. That's our natural state. We were born to go out and work all day. And we are to stay busy working, that keeps us out of trouble. If a man just stayed home and just went on some kind of welfare or just stayed home and just lived off of other people, he's going to get into trouble too. That isn't natural, that's not normal. He's not going to be happy. He's going to be tempted to get into the wrong things because he's just going to be bored and nothing going on. So this goes both ways. This goes for both men and women. Men are supposed to be busy out working the career, working the job, making money, being a provider, and then women are supposed to be staying busy in the home taking care of things. And look, there's a lot to take care of at home. My wife is not bored all day. She's not sitting around all day looking for drama to get into. No, she's running that house and it's a never-ending job. There's plenty to do. I'm out working, she's at home working, we're both working, we're staying out of trouble, we're staying busy, and it's a good life, my friend. Working hard and then enjoying rest is a good life. People who sit around and don't do anything, they're miserable. It's not a happy way to live your life. It's not right. And you say, well, okay, well, Pastor Anderson, if the problem is just staying busy, why can't women just be busy by being out in the workforce? Why not just let them just get busy working a job then? Your logic is sound. Except that that's not what the Bible says is God's plan for women. You know, humanly speaking, if you want to lean on your own understanding, you could say, well, if the problem's idleness, the women could be just as busy if both the man and the woman both go to work, they're both super busy, they're both tired at the end of the day, they both don't have time for drama and nonsense and gossip, they're both staying busy serving God, doing the right things, working hard. Why not do that? Well, because it's not what the Bible said. You know, I mean, it sounds great if you want to lean on your own understanding, but the Bible's plan is that we divide the labor up between the man and the woman and that the man be the breadwinner and that the woman be the homemaker, guide the house, keep the house, and so forth. And here's my question. If both man and woman both go to work, well, then who's taking care of things at home? You know, things at home aren't being taken care of the way they need to be, the kids aren't being taken care of the way they need to be, and so the reason why God has ordained this plan for the woman to stay home and the man to go out to work is that somebody be there to raise the children and the woman is better at that job, she is the superior homemaker. Okay? Now, look, you know, could I do the job of taking care of things at the house? I cook and clean and run the house. I could, but not as good as my wife could. You know, I would be the inferior homemaker. You know, I could get it done, but it wouldn't necessarily be done right. And you know what? I don't want to do it. Like, as a man, that just doesn't appeal to me. Like, being a stay-at-home dad is, like, a scary thought of, like, I'm taking care of the family and just taking care of the kids, and that's, like, my full-time job. I was like, no, it's like, I want to go to work. Like, I want to go do my own job. I want to do stuff. You know, you take care of the kids. I don't want to cook. I mean, my wife just went out of town for, like, five weeks. I didn't cook hardly anything. She was out of town for five weeks, and I didn't go to the grocery store at all. I just told my wife, I'm just going to eat what's in the house. I'm just going to figure it out and make it work. It was, it was a lot of cereal. It was a lot of oatmeal. It was a lot of toast. It was, I mean, it was pretty basic stuff. And then my wife, mercifully, my wife froze a bunch of meals that I could just thaw out, you know. I told somebody, I was like, man, I'm starting to run out of the meals that my wife froze for me. And they said, you know, you can just go to the store and you can buy a frozen meal. But I'm like, no, no, I want the stuff that she froze, you know. The real stuff, the good stuff. And look, maybe you're a man who loves to cook. That's great. There's nothing wrong with that. But I'm just saying, in general, though, just doing that whole job, though, of being that stay-at-home homemaker, it just, it don't feel right as a man. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, we could do it, but it doesn't feel right. You know, I've noticed a lot of women that are out in the workforce, they don't necessarily like it very much because it's almost like not their natural environment to be doing that. I mean, you know, sure. You could see some woman operating a jackhammer out there, working on the road or something. You know, every once in a while you'll see. I remember one time I saw a female sprinkler pipe fitter. And being a sprinkler pipe fitter is like one of the manliest jobs ever. Because I used to work in fire alarms. But I'm not talking about fire alarms, I'm talking about the people who put in the fire sprinklers. Who knows what I'm talking about, okay? And that's hard work because it's big, heavy pipes. It's these big, heavy black pipes and everything. And I remember there was this one female sprinkler pipe fitter. This is like 20 years ago. So this is like, this is before all the like sodomite craze and everything. It's actually like more like 25 years ago. And I remember we were all just kind of in awe. Like, we were kind of afraid of her. We were like afraid to even talk to her because we were just like, who is this woman? And she didn't seem like a lesbian or anything, but she was just, but her face was just like black with soot and she's all dirty and she had big muscles and it was just like, whoa, like a female pipe fitter. Wow. You know, here's the thing. Yeah, she's doing it. She's out there doing it. But you know, is that necessarily God's plan for women? That they be a pipe fitter? You know, that they be out there operating a jackhammer? You know, I don't know what that lady's situation is. I don't know why she's there. I'm not condemning her or judging her or anything. You know, whatever brought her to that point in her life, why she's doing that job. You know, who knows what has put her in that position. But I'm just, look, I'm preaching about what God has said His plan is. You know, there are exceptions to everything, but in general, in general, it's God's plan for the man to be the breadwinner and for the woman to be in the home. And you know, when you have this generation where there's no one in the home and you got both mom and dad both going to work and then the kids are just being shuffled around from here to there or whatever, that's not an ideal situation. That's not what God had planned. What God's perfect plan was, a mother raising her children at home. Okay? And whether that's popular or not or whether that's, you know, demeaning of women in the world's eyes, no, my friend, it's not demeaning of women. It's an honorable calling to raise those children in the home. It's something that God has ordained for you to do. It's a critical job. Somebody's got to raise the next batch of humans. And God has ordained that it be Christian homemakers that would do that. So yeah, you could say, well, women could just stay busy with a career and stay busy with something else, but you know, it's really God's plan that they stay busy keeping that home. Because somebody's got to keep that home. And you know what? Even before I had kids, man, it was nice just having a stay-at-home wife and being able to just come home after a hard day's work, and my wife is there, and she's got the house clean, she's got dinner cooked, and she's not tired. She's refreshed. You know, she's been home all day, and she's ready to take care of me when I got home from work. Hey, that was a great lifestyle as a newlywed coming home, and my wife's at home, and you know, it was wonderful. What's wrong with that? I mean, to me, that sounds like a luxury. You know, it sounds like a luxury to be able to have a stay-at-home wife, to be able to have a stay-at-home mother. That's a luxury. Okay, so if that's what God has prescribed, why would we rebel against that or bristle at that? You know, I mean, here's the thing. You got all these people out there buying lottery tickets so they never have to go to work again. You know, and it's like, well, God's telling women, you don't have to go to work again. You know, and what if I were a multimillionaire? Would my wife go to work? She'd be like, oh, great, now I can stay home because you're a multimillionaire. You're taking care of everything. You can stay home. Well, guess what? But my wife can still stay home because we just live on my income. Now, again, look, if you're in some situation where this is impossible for you, I'm not here to judge you or condemn your situation. I'm here to preach the Word of God as far as what is the ideal situation. In a perfect world, dad's going to work, mom is staying home and raising the kids. And, you know, if you don't agree with that, I don't even know what to tell you. I wonder if we're even reading the same Bible because that's pretty clear in the Bible. Like, I don't know how you could disagree with that and say, I mean, when the Bible literally says, I mean, we could turn to other passages. Flip over to Titus chapter two. You know, we got 1 Timothy five saying, I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house. Then you go over to Titus chapter two and we see pretty much the exact same thing. It says in verse number four that they teach the young women, this is Titus chapter two verse four, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home. What does that mean? Keepers at home doesn't mean they have agoraphobia and they never leave the house. That's not what it's saying. Keepers at home means that they're taking care of the house. It's sort of like when God told Adam to dress and keep the Garden of Eden. What did he mean when he said dress it and keep it? Keep it means guard it, take care of it, run it, manage it, right? If I said I'm a groundskeeper, what am I doing? I'm keeping everything the way it's supposed to be on these grounds, okay? Housekeeping, we still use that word and the Bible says here that the women are to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed, right? This is a good testimony to the world when they see a godly homemaking wife. That's a good testimony to this world. And that's when he said, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. Don't give occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme God when they look at these feminist women. And by the way, there are cultures in this world that blaspheme Christianity when they see the feminism of the Christian West because America is supposedly a Christian nation, Europe is supposedly a Christian continent and we've got all this feminism and then you have more traditional cultures in places like Africa and India, looking at that and saying like, whoa, this is Christianity? It's like basically, it used to be that the missionaries would come and basically the natives would put on more clothes after the missionaries showed up. Now the missionaries are showing up and they're getting less clothing. The missionaries are showing up and the women were wearing a traditional dress when they were natives. Now the Christian missionaries are teaching them to wear the short shorts and making them feminist. And so it's literally become the exact opposite where now the missionaries are stripping clothes off of the natives and now the Christian women are wearing less clothing than the natives. You can imagine that. It's crazy. It's backwards and that will cause the adversaries to blaspheme and say, well, if this is Christianity, I don't want this. I don't want this feminist garbage. Look at the fruit of this feminist movement, just all the divorce. I mean, the divorce rates are through the roof and what percentage of divorces are initiated by women? Huge number. The vast majority of divorces are initiated by women. There are more women divorcing their husbands than the other way around. So you got all these women divorcing their husbands. You've got all of these broken homes. You've got all of these torn apart family situations because we're not following God's plan, that's why. Okay, we need to do things. We need to do things God's way. And so it's not just 1 Timothy 5, it's Titus chapter 2 says the same thing that they should be obeying their husbands, keepers at home, godly, good, chaste women. You know, we could go over to 1 Peter chapter 3 and look at that. We could look at all different scriptures throughout the Bible and see that this is what the word of God is teaching, a plan for women to take care of the house. Somebody's got to do it. Somebody needs to raise up a godly generation. Somebody needs to be there to take care of the children, to be the primary caregiver, to make a nice home for the children to live in. Now, again, this should be seen as a blessing. It should be seen as a luxury. A woman, this is what women should be saying, I get to stay home. You know, I'm so thankful that my husband works and provides so that I get to stay home. Now, wouldn't that be a Christian godly attitude for women to have today instead of like, oh, you know, oh, you know, I didn't get to do my dream job or whatever. Here's the thing. Here's what you have to understand. Men are out there in the workforce. Do you think that we're all working our dream job right now? Now, I am because I'm, you know, I am doing the dream job as a pastor. But who would say here this is the job, I'm working the job right now. Right now, when I was a kid, this is the job I dreamed of. I'm working it right now. I'm living the dream right now. Put up your head if you are living the dream, okay? So here's the thing. Yeah, there are going to be some people that are living the dream. But, you know, most of us, we kind of just do the job that pays. You know what I'm saying? Like, and we enjoy it. We make the best of it. But it's not necessarily the dream job. You know, I mean, look, when I first got married, I was doing alarm systems. And, you know, the job was difficult and it was hard. And I didn't necessarily look forward to it. I looked forward to coming home at the end of the day and coming home to my wife. But I didn't necessarily just love that job. And it wasn't just like, oh, I've always wanted to do this or whatever. And, you know, I've had to do some dirty jobs. I've had to crawl through attics and work in all kinds of rough conditions and everything like that. Just because you're out there working doesn't mean you're necessarily working the dream job. It's not like all of us men are just out there as marine biologists. You know what I mean? And we're all just out there communing with the dolphins and you're stuck at home and we're with Shamu all day and we're playing with the dolphins and you're slaving over a hot stove. No, that's not really what's going on, is it? We're not all out there just being the President of the United States and being in the NBA. We're out there working whatever job we can get, whatever job pays the bills. We're out there plumbing and doing electrical and climbing under houses and, you know, building ships or whatever we're doing. We're out there working. I talked to a ship builder this morning. That's why I brought that up. But, you know, we're out there doing whatever the job we can do and it's not always glamorous. It's not always fun. I mean, I can remember just week after week installing the same device in hotel rooms, this horn strobe, and it had two wires going into it, a red wire and a black wire. The red was positive, the black was negative, and just installing that just for day after day, just for hours and hours and hours, just installing the exact same device in these high-rise hotels. And I was just like, this is a dream come true. I just can't wait to see another identical hotel room and just connect the red wire to the positive and the black is good. It's not like I was in the bomb squad, like, what do I cut, the red wire or the black wire? We got ten seconds. We're all going to explode. Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah. No, it was just like, all right, here we go again, the 1,000th device that's exactly the same. Here's what I'm saying. You know, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. It's easy for women to say, like, oh, man, stay at home. Stay at home, mom. Stay at home, wife. You know, I wish I could be out there working in the world or whatever. It's not that cool out there. You know, it's a very small percentage of people that have this super cool, glamorous job, whatever that is. Most of us are just out there working and getting paid, doing whatever, okay? And then it could be the same for men. You know, men could just, oh, it must be easy staying home all day. I'm out of work. You're staying home. But here's the thing, you know, staying home has its own challenges, right? Staying home has its challenges. Raising kids has its challenges. You know, being in the house, cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, homeschooling, these are difficult things as well. You know, but if all our problems were hung on a line, you'd take yours and I'd take mine. And, you know, being a pastor has its own challenges too. It is my dream job, but that doesn't mean it's always easy, doesn't mean that I always like it, doesn't mean that it's always fun. It has its own challenges. Everything in life has its challenges. But, you know, I'd much rather face the challenges of life knowing that I'm doing what God told me to do than saying, well, I know that's what the Bible says, but I'm just going to kind of do it my way. I want to do it my way. You know, I'd rather have the assurance of, well, you know, I was thirsty. Thank you, pulpit, for throwing water at me. The pulpit's like, here, you need some water. Here you go. Ah, all right, throw it at me again if I need it. So the point is that, you know, we can always envy other people's situation and it can be easy for men to envy women. It's, oh, it must be easy staying home or whatever. You know, I've felt that way before. We've all felt that way, like, oh, man, I'm out here working my fingers to the bone. I'm out here working all night and, you know, it must be nice taking the kids to the zoo. Taking the kids over, but then, like, when you actually take the kids to the zoo, you realize, like, okay, you know, yeah, this is work, too. But it can be easy to think that way. You know, and then it's easy for the woman to say, oh, it must be nice. You're going out meeting all these interesting people, and it's, like, they're weirdos. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm meeting some interesting people out there. Yeah, it's great, really. You know, but it's the same thing. You know, kids that are homeschooled, they wish they were in public school, and then public school kids are, like, I wish I could be homeschooled. You know, it's just human nature to just always think that there's just some better thing that you're missing out on somewhere else. Look, my friend, if you're in God's will, if you're following the Lord, that's the best way to live your life. There's nothing better out there. There just isn't. Get on God's program, and don't let the world dictate your life to you, and don't feel like you have to show them, you know, that I could have a career if I wanted to. You know, I mean, I want, you know, I'm going to be a stay-at-home, but first I want to show the world that I could make it out there, you know, as a woman, and then I'll be a stay-at-home once I've proven. You know what? If you go through life trying to prove things to people, you're going to be real disappointed because here's what you're going to find. No one's convinced. No one cares. It doesn't even matter. It's a weird way to live your life to constantly be trying to prove things to other people and showing people, you know, how smart you are, how successful you are, what you can achieve or something, you know. I remember when I was at Hiles Anderson College, they used to always tell us how, you know, these guys on staff, they'd be millionaires if they were out in the business world. And I remember thinking like, you know, I mean, these guys are pretty, these are great staff members, you know, God bless them, they're great guys, but would they really all be millionaires? This is back when a million dollars was a lot of money, folks. No, I'm just kidding. You know, somebody's going to listen to this sermon five years from now and be like, well, everybody makes a million dollars, you know, so much inflation. But this is the year, this sermon's in 2023 if you're watching this years from now, okay, when a million dollars was still kind of a lot. But I'm telling you, like, they'd be like, these guys, you know, they'd be millionaires out in the world. You know, is that really true? I don't know. But is that really something that we would even, that we even need to think about? Like, hey, I could be making a million dollars right now, but here I am preaching to you guys. This is like, okay. You know, I guess women are just kind of like, hey, I could be out there, the CEO of my own fashion company or something. It's like, no, you know what, you'd probably be in some diner somewhere. You'd probably be some secretary somewhere. You know, you're probably working a desk somewhere. Just like most of us, when we're out in the world, what are we doing? You know, what about me before I went in the ministry? What was I doing? You know, I was making good money, but I was working my butt off doing electrical work. You know, and you guys that are making money, you're out there doing jobs that are not necessarily glamorous. You know, we're not necessarily running a zoo. You know, or, you know, do we have any astronauts? I mean, I know we're in Houston. Houston, we have a problem? Anybody work for NASA? Any NASA employees out there? Anyone? Anyone? Wait, you mean you don't work for NASA? What, what, what? Oh, how many marine biologists do we have out there? Okay, any politicians, full-time politicians out there? Anyway, we got one in the front here, but he's a child. Okay. How many professional athletes are here in the auditorium tonight? How many professional athletes do we have? Hmm, hmm, let me think, because I'm thinking of the, you know, any helicopter pilots out there? Any, no helicopter pilots? Let's see, anybody who, who scuba dives full-time? Any video game testers out there? Okay, so, yeah, so, do you see what I'm saying, folks? You could sit there and fantasize, like, well, you know, if I weren't, if I weren't a pastor, you know, I'd be a millionaire and I'd be an astronaut. No, I wouldn't. I'd be an electrician. You know, and, oh, you know, if I didn't have to stay at home, I'd be a fashion designer and I'd be an actress, I'd be a singer. No, you wouldn't. You'd be doing the kind of crap that we're doing as men. You'd be flipping, you know, sandwiches in some diner, or you'd be, you know, a waitress, or you'd be selling clothing at JCPenney, right? That's the jobs that people actually do. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? That's what most people end up doing. I mean, not you, you know, you'd be some kind of an influencer or something, you know. But, folks, the real world is that, you know what, we all have jobs that we do that aren't necessarily always exciting or glamorous or super cool. We're not necessarily all living the dream. But, you know what? When you're doing your work as unto the Lord, that is the dream. You know, and when you're showing up to that plumbing job, that electrical job, that carpentry job, that computer programming job, and when you're doing it with a heart that is doing it as unto the Lord and not unto men, and when you're serving God and you're going to church and you love your family and you love your church and you read your Bible and you're praying and you're serving God, you know, then you have joy unspeakable and full of glory, not because you have the coolest job, but because you've got Christ in your heart. And you know what? Astronauts aren't necessarily that happy either. What about that astronaut woman that put on a diaper and drove across America to murder her boyfriend? Was she living the dream? Who knows what I'm talking about? Yeah, half the auditorium knows what I'm talking about. Don't act like I'm crazy, other half, just because you didn't hear about it. Some female astronaut put on an astronaut diaper because she didn't even want to stop and use the bathroom? Because she was in such a hurry, she wanted to have an alibi, so she like drove hundreds of miles to go murder her ex-boyfriend, and she's just peeing herself the whole way there, the whole way back, and she got caught anyway. Is she living the dream? Because here's the thing, happiness isn't just because you're working with Shamu. Happiness is when you're following the Lord, when you're doing God's will for your life. You know, I could be shoveling poop for the rest of my life and be happy if I'm following Christ. I could be the happiest pooper scooper in the world if I'm serving God with my life. Or I could be miserable as a millionaire, miserable as an astronaut, miserable as a marine biologist, because that's not the stuff that makes you happy, my friend. Okay, joy comes from the Holy Spirit, it comes from doing right. And so back to the women, you know, why not find happiness pursuing God's calling for your life and saying, you know what, my ultimate ambition is to marry a godly man and to be the support for him that God wants me to be, to be in help that is meat for him, just as Eve was for Adam. You know, why not make that the ultimate... And look, again, I'm not condemning people who are in other situations for whatever reason. You know, I don't know your situation, I'm not trying to judge your situation. I'm talking to the little girls, you know, we had a room tonight full of little girls and teenage girls that still have their life ahead of them. Why not make that your goal and say, you know what I'd like to do? I would like to grow up and be a mother. I would like to grow up and marry some godly man that will pay the bills for me and then I could have the luxury of staying at home and I would get to stay home and raise my children instead of having to constantly drop... And look, you know, people who have to drop their kids off at daycare every day, they don't want to do... they don't like that. They're not just like, yes, get rid of these kids at daycare. Now I can pawn, hey, down at my job, yeah, clock in, put on the name tag, put on the hairnet, woo, let's flip some sandwiches, yeah. No, I mean, you know, it's sad a lot of times. They have to drop their kid off here and they're rushing around doing this, doing that. You know, it's not an ideal situation. You know what would be ideal is for them to get to stay home. It's a privilege, it's a blessing, it's a luxury, right? Get to stay home because their husband provides, amen, you know, that he's willing to do that work and provide and he's willing to, you know, throw fish at the fish market or whatever so that you can stay home, the kind of jobs that people really end up doing. You know, and why not have an ambition that says, you know, I want my husband, the man that I love, right? You know, because you're going to marry someone that you love, hopefully, presumably, right? You know, why not want to make his life good, right? And why don't we have men who say, I want to make my wife's life good so I'm going to go out and work and pay the bills and I'm not going to waste all the money but I'm going to provide a nice life for my family because I love my wife and I love my children, I want to make things nice for them, right? That's what we do as men, want to provide a life for our family. And then women saying, you know what, I love my husband, I love my children, I want to make things nice for him. I want him to come home and have a nice atmosphere, a nice home, a nice meal, everything taken care of. You know, isn't that a worthwhile use of your life? Or is that just a waste, oh what a waste of your mind, what a waste of your talent and you're just a stay-at-home mother. You could have been an engineer, you could have been an architect, you could have worked at NASA. You know, is working at NASA really more important than working as a stay-at-home mom and raising the next generation? And you could raise a bunch of astronauts if that's what you want to do. But you know, is that really what life's about? Just trying to just get off this planet and go somewhere else, go to some cold, dark, desolate place somewhere else? This is the best planet. This is the only nice planet. The other planet is just too cold, it's too hot, it's bad air. You don't want to go there. This is where we want to stay. And so, I would encourage you to just look at a chapter like 1 Timothy 5 and understand that God's will for women is that they marry, bear children, guide the house, and be a good example to this world. So that the world would look at you and glorify your Father which is in heaven. You know, they would look at you and say, hey, if that's Christianity, what must I do to be saved? Sign me up because I'm seeing a godly woman and she's raising the kids and she's taking care of the house and she's cooking meals and she's providing a happy home. You know, providing a happy home. You say, oh, I want to be an interior decorator. You know, why don't you just provide a happy home and a nice atmosphere in your own home? Oh, I want to be a chef. You know, well, I got good news for you. God's plan for your life involves a lot of cooking. And so, we need to get on God's program and not get too influenced by this world because I'm telling you, we've all been influenced by it. We've all gotten the messaging our whole lives just growing up, whether it's in school, even the cartoons. They're pushing this thing of I am woman, hear me roar. And that's the message even in the cartoons. It's all, you know, pushing that agenda, all the stories now, all the fairy tales now. They're all pushing the independent woman. You know, the kids go to the theater now and they watch a woman just beating up a bunch of dudes. Folks, that doesn't happen in real life. Okay, but that's what, you know, but they're teaching, hey, this is what a woman is. In reality, we need to go to the word of God and renew our minds and let God tell us what a woman looks like. And God tell us what the ideal life pattern for a woman is that she would raise children, serve the Lord, keep the house, love her husband, love her children. That's success in God's sight. That's what we should be striving for. And if that is not the way your life has gone, you should still want that for your children. You know, even if your life didn't go that way, you should still want that for the next generation. My preaching shouldn't bother you like, wow, he's bothering me because I'm not a stay-at-home mom or I'm not a stay-at-home wife. Well, you know, but don't you still agree that that's the ideal? And you should hopefully want these next generation of little girls. And you know what, you say, well, I don't appreciate this message, but here's the thing about this is that, like, you're not going to really hear this from the world. Like, I'm just trying to balance out. I'm up here with the Bible trying to balance out and kind of undo what all the cartoons have been saying and all the movies have been saying and all the school systems have been saying. I'm up here just trying to pull in the other direction and say, hey, wait a minute, what about just being a stay-at-home wife? What about being a stay-at-home mom? Is that a calling? No, no, no, I believe it's the highest calling. It's the literal highest calling for a woman. It's not like, well, it's good too, you know. It's almost like being an astronaut, you know. No, it's superior to being an astronaut. If I could choose to have my daughters grow up and all be astronauts, all go to the moon, all go to Mars, all go all over the galaxy, or just have them grow up and be stay-at-home mothers of Christian husbands, that's all I want. You know, I mean, it is, you know, obviously they're going to grow up and they're going to make those decisions. And, you know, I don't know, maybe some of them will decide that they want to have this career or that career or whatever, but you know what? I'm going to teach them that God's will is that they get married, bear children, and guide the house. You know, that's the ideal, that's what we're striving for, that's the goal, that's what I'm going to teach in my house, you know. At the end of the day, they have to embrace that vision for themselves. But that is what I want to lift up and exalt. And if you don't like my message, well, don't worry because I'm literally just giving one message and don't worry because your kids and everyone else around you is hearing the other message a hundred times as much. So, you know, if you don't like my message, just be happy to know that when you go home and turn on the cartoons, it's going to be teaching them the opposite, right? But, you know, here's the thing, you know why that doesn't bother me though? It's because I know the Word of God is so powerful, it'll cut through all that, and somebody could be brainwashed for a hundred hours or a thousand hours with the wrong message. And, you know, when you get them this message, isn't it interesting how the Word of God has a way of just kind of cutting through all that? And it's like you put all the programming and all the schooling and all the media and all the devil's efforts to program us a certain way and you put it on one side of the scale and then you just set the Bible and it's just like... I mean, think about how many other things the world's been trying to brainwash us on and we're not doing it. You know, those people out there this morning, they're brainwashed. They've just been completely deceived. I mean, they've bought into it hook, line and sinker. I mean, their brains are gone, okay? You know? But here's the thing, we were exposed to a lot of the same programming that those people were exposed to, but the difference is that we went to church and got our minds renewed with the Word of God. And so, you know, what we need is we need churches that will get up and preach a straight message on this and not beat around the bush and that's why I'm just giving it to you straight tonight. Hey, it's God's will for women that they stay home, raise the children. That's the ideal situation. That's God's plan. The nuclear family, mother, father, children, that's the plan, my friend. And if the world doesn't like it, they can lump it. And those people this morning, they don't want that nuclear family, do they? They want a couple of dudes, a couple of women, or who knows what they want. Other combinations that can't even be imagined, okay? All the different letters of the alphabet that they stack up on their acronym, okay? But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I only care what this book says. I'm not perfect, but I have striven to live my life according to this book. And I pray that you will get out this book and read it and study it and strive to live your life, not conform to this world, but transform by this book right here. Let's pray. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. And Lord, we pray that you would just open hearts this evening and that everyone would be open to the truth of your word and that it would sink down into all of our ears and that we would not have a worldly mentality, but that we would have a Christian mentality on this issue. And Lord, we love you. We're thankful for those who've come out to church tonight. Bless us all as we go our separate ways, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Round 160, Crown Him With Many Crowns. The heavenly anthem drowns The music that it's on Awake, my soul, and sing The Lamb who died for thee And hail Him as our matchless King Through all eternity Crown Him, the Lord of blood In all His hands and side Rage, rage, and praise Him all above In Him we glorify No angel in the sky Can only bear that sign Up downward bends His wandering eye Let me still be so proud Round Him, the Lord of blood Who triumphed for the grave Who rose victorious to the sky For those He came to save His glories now we see Who died and rose on high Who died eternal life to bring When the fact that we die Round Him, the Lord of head One with the Father known One with the Spirit firm in care From yonder glorious throne To thee be endless praise For the whole Ross has done Be thou alone through endless days A darted man is mine Amen. Thank you all for coming. You are dismissed. God bless. Thank you.