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So I'll read the questions, and
if it's a marriage question, I'll try to answer it, or maybe
give it to Rick. And if it's a parenting question,
Rick will answer it. All right, and if neither of us can answer
it, we'll look at Pastor Nathan and Andrew or something like
that. Okay, how would you, and we haven't looked at these ahead
of time, so we'll do our best. How would you counsel a husband
or father who feels pressure or an unspoken expectation from
their employer and coworkers to work more hours when this
results in less physical, emotional, spiritual presence with his wife
and children? That's you. When I do this, when I go like
this, when I go. That's. Okay, so a lot of the men in
our church work for Intel. Your mic's not on. Oh, there
it is. Now it's on? Okay. A lot of the
men in our church work for Intel or other high-tech organizations
like that. And I want to tell you something.
Intel will take every bit of your flesh that you give them,
every bit. They will take it all. And so
I always have to tell the guys, you need to set some boundaries
because you also need to be with your family, your wife, your
husband, your father, and you're a worker. You're all those things.
But you can't just be a worker. So you just have to set some
boundaries. That's all there is to it. And
if they keep trying to get more out of you, at some point, you
just have to say, look, I've got some other priorities that
are important and trust God Reserve your job or get you another job.
I don't know what else you can say other than that. But you
have to have some boundaries. Otherwise, at least I know how
Intel is. They'll take it all from you.
So don't let that happen. And you know what happens when
a guy gets too busy at work. So not such a good outcome. Good. Thank you, Rick. OK, next
question. Question, how does a wife submit to the Lord and
her husband at the same time if she thinks her husband is
leading in a way that is not biblical? Even if he doesn't
listen to your counsel, what about a constant unbiblical leading?
Well, it's interesting, this woman, I'm assuming it's a woman
who asked this, didn't make this question easy because she said
her husband is unbiblical versus sinful. Now, if she wrote sinful,
then that'd be easy, because we know a wife doesn't submit
to her husband if it means a sinning, right? But she said unbiblical,
so I don't know exactly if she means unbiblical as synonymous
with sinful, but if your husband was asking you to do something
that was sinful, you wouldn't submit, but if he was asking
you to do something that's unbiblical, is that the same as sinful? If it's against the Bible, it'd
be sinful. Yeah, okay, then I would say she wouldn't submit to her
husband's sin. But I'll just say, and maybe
the women can hopefully agree, most of the time when wives don't
want to submit, it isn't because of a sin issue. It's because
they're not getting to do something they want or something isn't
going the way that they think is best. Go ahead, Jake. It does, and it does. There is
wisdom, and I think a problem in the Christian life is confusing
law and wisdom, right? Proverbs is wisdom, it's not
law. Leviticus is law. So, we distinguish between them.
There are wisdom issues in the Christian life. And so, in a
wisdom issue, then a wife should defer to her husband, and then
believe that God will not hold her responsible if he is incorrect. So, what do you think? Okay. That's good, thanks for that
distinction there, yeah. How do you go about engaging with
kids who are not believing, still the right, R-I-T-E method, or
how does it change? Well, okay, so have you ever
heard of the 4-14 window? If you look at people, okay,
how many of you came to Christ somewhere between the ages of
four and 14? Raise your hand. Okay, look at
how many hands are up. So studies that have done show
that most believers came to Christ between the ages of four and
14. Now thank God there are many of you even here who came to
Christ later on in life. And that's great. But there's
a certain factor going on where kids are just more open and they
haven't hardened their hearts so much, and so they come to
Christ. So if a kid is between the age
of 4 and 14, you know, I just try to share the gospel with
them, keep the gospel out there in front of them. When they get
past, they start getting older. That's hard, you know? But you
don't give up. You keep the relationship. You
keep praying. I mean, it's the same thing,
R-I-T-E, right? You might not be able to teach
as much. They might not listen to your teaching. But you can
still build a relationship, do a lot of things to build a relationship.
You can still intercede for them. Even if they are long gone out
of your house, you should be interceding, right? And you can
keep setting an example. Because the fact of the matter
is, Even if they don't see your example, your example does affect
them. Now that may not sound right,
but look at what the Bible says. Look at people like, how many
times does it say God was merciful to a certain king because of
David? And David might have lived 100
years before him, but he still, God still blesses someone who
has a godly relative, you know, ancestor. So I was just reading
through Numbers recently and the Bible says there that God
blessed Caleb's ancestor, or not ancestors, descendants because
of Caleb's faithfulness to God. And so your faithfulness will
set a good example, but even if they don't see the example,
it still can be a blessing to them. And so I would say just
continue on. Share the gospel with them if
you can, and especially when they're young, you wanna do that.
Don't push it, because a lot of parents push, push, push on
the gospel, and then they'll make some kind of decision that's
not real, and then you got another kind of problem. Then they think
they're believers, and they're not really experiencing to have
the Holy Spirit. And so they'll come up and say,
well, it didn't work for me. and then they'll turn away from
the Lord. So you don't wanna push it, but you do wanna keep the gospel
in front of them. I don't know if I'm exactly answering
that question. Does that sound like I am? Okay, thanks. I can just talk, but no, I don't
wanna do that, so go ahead. Question, how do we invest in
our wives practically? So, one of the other messages
I deliver at marriage conferences is on 1 Peter 3, 7, which says
that husbands are to dwell with their wives in an understanding
way or develop knowledge or understanding of their wives and live with
them according to that knowledge. And so, you know what? not being
a woman myself, I've come to this belief from conversations
with women that one of the most important things for women, and
it's not surprising this is the case because if God's word commands
husbands to learn and understand our wives or develop knowledge
of our wives, what do wives really enjoy or appreciate? Husbands
that know their wives or get to know their wives and know
as much about their wife as they know about almost anything else,
right? How hurtful is it to a woman when she believes her husband
knows more about what? his favorite sports team or athlete
or movies, lines in movies or something like that. And so women
really want to be known. They really want to be understood.
And so that's why, and I'm being pretty serious when I say this.
I hope I've never done this from behind the pole, but I don't
think we should joke, make worldly jokes. And here's what I mean.
I said worldly jokes because we like joking, Chuck. And everyone
in this room who didn't know you before today knows you like
joking. So if the world, if the Bible says to learn and understand
your wife, what is the world going to say? You can't understand
women. If the Bible says respect your
husband, then the world is going to say, And how does the world
always present men? As being bumbling, foolish, inept,
incompetent. A woman must do it. She can't
trust her husband. She has to take things in her own hands.
So there's jokes about women and how impossible they are to
understand. And I'm not really very confident we should go along
with those jokes, because I think there's kind of an agenda to
them to make women look incredibly confusing. Why even bother trying
to understand them, when actually that's one of the primary commands
for husbands to understand our wives. And I don't think we should
make jokes that make men look foolish or bumbling. And so one
of the ways to practically invest in our wives is to, so Katie
told me this one time. So I think it's nice to kind
of have this conversation with people that know us very well.
Katie has lots of ideas. She said one of her life verses
is in Ecclesiastes where it says the end of a matter is better
than it's a beginning, which is to say it's better to finish
things than start new things. So she has lots of ideas and
she has told me, she told me one time, and it was kind of
sad that she had to tell me this. It's a reflection of my insensitivity,
to be honest. Because I might have made a joke.
I don't remember the context. Maybe I made a joke about her
having an idea, and her ideas don't happen, and she has so
many of them or something. But she said to me, she said, you
know, and she said it very nicely to me. It did convict me. She
said, even if you don't think one of my ideas is ever going
to happen, it would really mean a lot to me if you just listened to
me. And so over the years, I've recognized it's very important
to Katie to listen to her and to let her share. And I see her
kind of light up. And she's bubbling a bit when
she can share about her ideas and thoughts for our kids and
our families and things like that. So I think investing in
our wives is listening to them, asking them questions, being
interested in them. Uh-oh, here we go. Johnny? I
have a question about what you said right before that, with
how the world makes it sound like women are complicated. I
feel like they sort of are. OK. Well, first, I thought you
were going to say. Do you understand them better as you get older?
Rick? No, no, no. That's you. That's a marriage
one. That's a marriage one. That's you. OK. Andrew? I was
going to say, we don't have to understand women. We just have
to want to be. That's a good point. That's a
good point. Yeah. That is a good point. Yeah. Yeah, there was a bit of a chuckle
by someone, but I don't think Andrew was joking. I think he's
serious, and I think there's real beauty in our wives, and as we
pursue them, Katie's, and I mean this, and I don't even know if
she's here, but she's become more beautiful the longer we've
been married. She's become more beautiful to
me the longer we've been married, and the more you get to know
your wife, I think the more beauty becomes apparent, and so that's
one way to invest in our wives, I think. What do you yes, no
go ahead Yeah, yeah, yeah find out how
your wife and find out how she wants to invest in, that's good.
Thanks for sharing that, I think that's good. Kind of like the idea of
finding out what allows your husband to feel respected, find
out how your wife feels invested in. By the way, women don't understand
men's thinking either, right? I'm really glad they don't understand
how we think. Aren't you guys glad? That was good, Rick. Okay, what do we pray for in
our wives? Is it appropriate to pray for
more submission? Hmm. I think it depends on the load
in our wives' life. So with 10 children, much of
my prayer has been for endurance for Katie and joy and patience
with all she has going on, and I suspect that it'll be a different
prayer later in life. So Katie messages women in the
church, tries to invest in women the best she can. I think she's
nursing and she's texting or messaging women to check in with
them. When our children are older, my suspicion is my wife's ministry
will change and she'll be more invested personally or one-on-one
with them and then maybe my prayer will be that God gives her wisdom
to minister well to the women in her life and so I think it
really depends on we pray for our wives based on what's going
on in their lives and what they're going through. I know there's
been difficult things in ministry over the years and then those
prayers look different based on the trials we were experiencing. To pray for our wives to be more
submissive, I actually think that'd be a great thing. The
alternative would be to maybe rebuke your wife or criticize
her or tell her she's so rebellious or insubmissive and that's probably
not gonna make her wanna be more submissive. So praying for her
to be more submissive would be a good way to handle that privately
and then let God work in her heart versus trying to get your
wife to be more submissive through criticism. I think prayer, too,
is good. I think that's a good prayer.
But men, don't make that verse, wives submit to your husbands,
your favorite verse in the Bible. Because if you do, you got a
problem, I'll tell you right now. Yeah, well said, Rick. Yeah,
I think, I don't mean you could say, but I don't think that's
something that comes up. We don't say, or I don't say,
you know, you submit to me, or you better submit to me, or something.
That's not a, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, this is for
you, Rick. If a dad believes it's okay to
discipline out of anger, and because it shows God's wrath
towards sin, what would you say to him? Okay, that's a good question. I really appreciate that, because
I have to correct something a little bit. Anger itself is not a sin,
okay? The one who's the most angry
in the Bible of all the characters in the Bible is God. More often
than anybody else, it talks about God's anger. But God's anger
is different from our normal anger, okay? Now, we can be angry
in the right way. Anger is actually a gift. If
you look out your window and you see a little girl being beat
up by a gang, You better be angry. You better be angry. Because
anger is given to us as an emotion so that we won't be apathetic.
So we won't just sit by and be passive. So we'll do something.
So we'll enforce justice. So anger is actually a good thing.
But 95% of the time, we mess it up. And we make it a bad thing
by being angry either at the wrong kinds of things or in the
wrong way. Read the question one more time. If a dad believes it's okay to
discipline out of anger because it shows God's wrath or God's
anger towards sin, what would you say to him? Right, so is
it a godly anger or an ungodly anger? Usually it's an ungodly
anger. For me, it was an ungodly anger.
I would just get mad. And it wasn't so much, I mean,
it's kind of hard to answer that question because some of the
anger is because they did what was not right in God's eyes.
And so there's a reason for anger, but if I express it in a way
that's not biblical or not the way God would express it, God's
anger, you know, theologians would just describe God's anger
as a settled opposition to evil. That's God's anger. He has a
settled opposition. He doesn't go and fly off the
handle, okay? Like I would tend to do. That's the kind of anger
that's totally wrong. And it needs to be, you need
to ask your kids forgiveness if you discipline in that way. But to have a settled opposition
to evil, and you realize your child has done something wrong,
and that's not right, it's not glorifying to God, and it's actually
harmful to the child. That kind of anger is fine, but
watch how you express it, okay? Watch how you express that anger. That's just so important. Okay,
and a follow-up. When does man's anger become
sinful? When does man's anger become
sinful? Yeah, so if it's angry for the wrong reasons, I didn't
get the last piece of pizza, that would be wrong, okay? It's
selfish. If it's selfish anger, that's
sinful. If it's anger that continues, that could be wrong too, because
it says in Ephesians, don't let the sun go down on your anger. Continue in anger. You need to
work it through, work it out. How else could anger be seen?
If it's uncontrolled. If it's uncontrolled, yeah. If
it's expressed wrongly, as I just was saying. Sorry? Yeah, if it's wrongly motivated
out of pride or selfishness, then it's clearly wrong. God's
anger is at sin and injustice. And ours should be too, but we
have to express it in the right way. And you have to think, I
like what Scott's doing where he's saying, Pastor Scott's saying,
not just what you do, but how does your wife feel about this?
How do your children feel about the way you're disciplining them?
You may think you're doing an anger, how do they feel? Do they
feel rejected because of it? You have to be careful about
their thoughts and their feelings too. Thank you. And the third
part, what should a wife do agree with her husband on this? What
should a wife do if she doesn't agree with her husband on this?
That's probably more on your court. No, I think it's yours. OK. I talked a lot about marriage
today. I think it'd actually be good
to hear some of your wisdom on marriage. Well, first of all,
I want to say that I hope you were listening carefully to what
Pastor Scott said, because he had some really, really good
insights there, really good. I took a lot of notes. So if
a wife doesn't agree, then she needs to take her husband aside
privately, like you said, and talk to him about it and share.
But in the end, what else can she do? I mean, she can't, I
don't know, what else would you do? Well, if a wife thought her
husband was perhaps abusive, whether emotionally or mentally
to children, because we're talking about anger here, right? We're
not talking about laziness. Laziness doesn't manifest abuse,
but anger can. I would, and I've gotten questions
like this, what should I do when my husband does or behaves or
acts this way? My encouragement is to go to
one of the elders wives and to get some, to get their, not just
their counsel, but for them to get their husbands to address
her husband. Absolutely. Cause the husband's under the
leadership of the church, as you pointed out. So that's right.
You can appeal to the elders of the church. That's a good
idea. But if a woman's not plugged into a local church, she's losing
an incredible resource she has available to minister to her
husband. When angry about an issue, but we need to discipline
kids, how do we not discipline in anger? I feel like that's
kind of similar. Do you feel like it's similar? Or how do you not
discipline in anger? Well, like I said, I like to
use timeouts that way to have the child go to the room get
time for me to settle down and pray and say, Lord, what would
be the best discipline in this situation? And I find that to
be helpful for me. Okay. What is a good verse to
memorize in the moment when you're about to say something to your
spouse you shouldn't? Is it Proverbs 15 one that it says the soft
answer turns away wrath? Yeah, that's a very convicting,
very convicting verse. So right in the middle of a fight
and you're going at each other and you're both in the flesh
and there's lots of cruel words instead of soft, gentle words
that usually just stirs up the other person. But for one person
to respond gently and kindly with the soft answer, soft response
can turn away wrath. So I think that's a really good
verse. Do you have another one that comes to mind? No, but I like that
strategy. When Jesus was tempted, what
did he do? He had a verse just like that, right? Deuteronomy
8, three times, right away. He replies to Satan with the
Bible verse. So it's good to have and then
to use it. I like James. One, let everyone
be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. That's a real good one. For Rick, what is your thought
on other people disciplining your children, such as babysitters
or family members? I don't know how to answer that,
to be honest with you. It depends on the kind of discipline
we're talking about. As far as spanking goes, I would
reserve that for Diane and me. As far as other kinds of discipline,
I would like to set out in advance with the babysitter what kind
of discipline that they could do or not do, okay? Just draw
the lines. Most of the time I would just
say, report to me. Let us know exactly what happened.
And don't worry about trying to be popular with the kids.
Just tell us what happened, if they do something wrong, and
we will take care of it. So usually we can take care of
it. That's my sense. But I don't see anything in the
Bible that says it has to be that way. But if I understand,
if I summarize your answer, are you basically saying your encouragement
would be that those other individuals would relate to you so that you
could then perform the discipline? Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Now, in our family of our children, one of our children has told
us we have freedom to discipline his children however we want.
But there's another one of our children who says, you know,
we wanna do the disciplining. And so in that case, it's just
me listening to the children, because they're the ones that
are the parents of those kids. But if it's just for me, yes,
I think what you just said, I would tend to say, let us know what
it is and we'll take care of it. Okay. I understand gentle
parenting is not right, but what about Romans 2, 4, God's loving
kindness leads us to repentance? And I'm glad they didn't ask
me that question. God's loving kindness leads us
to repentance. Does that mean that other things
don't lead us to repentance? You have to be careful. That
could be a logical fallacy. What led the prodigal son to
repentance? It was probably because he was
down in the pig pen, and then there was a famine on top of
that. So God's discipline led him to repentance. So there's
not just one thing that leads to repentance. Certainly, if
you have a good relationship with the child, that loving kindness
will help them to be able to come to you and repent, but also
discipline will lead them to repentance too. So there's various
things like that. So that's fascinating, and I'm
not disagreeing with you. It's just another thing I see in that parable.
I actually thought you were mentioning the prodigal son because that's
a good example of the father's kindness leading to repentance
because the son, while in the pit, said how good his father
is and don't his servants, and he talks about his father's kindness,
and it was actually the father's kindness that seemed to lead
him to repentance. So it's probably not either or,
just. It'd be both, wouldn't it? Yeah, but the difficult circumstances
were when nobody gave him any food, you get the impression
if anyone would have given him anything, he wouldn't have come to repentance.
It made it easier for him to repent because he had a relationship
with the Father, okay? Just like you said, you can make
it easier for your wife to submit. You can make it easier for your
husband to leave. How do you encourage adult children
who know the truth but are not walking with the Lord? Is that
for me? I don't have any adult children
yet. I mean, Johnny thinks he's an adult, but it's not. The most
important thing is prayer, humbling yourself before God, getting
on your face before God, and begging God to work in the life
of your adult child. A lot of times, there's not a
lot you can do. The R-I-T-E, you can keep trying
to relate, and you should do that. Tea, teaching, you probably
can't do any of that. Example, like I said, you can
still do that. And as I said, your righteousness in life will
be a blessing even if the child doesn't see, or the adult child
doesn't see your example. But intercession is absolutely
key. And again, I'll just quote 2
Corinthians 10, where Paul says, the weapons we fight with are
not the weapons of this world, but they have divine power to
demolish strongholds. Our struggle is not against flesh
and blood, right? But against the rulers, authorities,
the powers of this dark world. So we've got to be in prayer.
And sometimes it's just praying and waiting, praying and waiting
for God to do something in their lives. Sometimes that's all you
can do. Thank you, Rick. Okay, in large
families where kids are in the home sometimes past the age of
18 to 20 plus, how do you deal with subtle or outright disobedience
or rebellion? Or if I understand, how do you
deal with subtle or outright disobedience of children in the home who are
adults? And it's your turn to get a question now. First, I don't have a child that's
18 to 20. And you're the parenting guy
today, Rick. Not an expert, I'll tell you
that. Did you have some children in
the home at that age that were unmarried? Did we? They were
in college. They were in college, mostly.
Well, there was one time. when our one child was being
a prodigal, he was at home. Oh, so that's exactly right.
So we would say this, in our house, there are certain standards,
certain rules, and if you're gonna be here, you have to follow
them. Now, they're not extensive to someone that age, but there
are some, okay? And so that's, I would make some
standards, and as long as they follow that, that's fine, they
can be at the home. If they violate those standards,
then they can't be at the home. Is that what it's asking me?
How do you deal with subtle or outright disobedience or rebellion
in children of that? If it's outright disobedience,
then I have to talk to them and say, you know, it's not working
for you to be in the home. you're causing some real problems.
You're disobeying God and causing problems for maybe for Diane
or for me or whatever. And so you can't be at home.
If it's subtle, again, you can talk to them. You can pray for
them. And at some point, you might
have to say, I'm sorry if it's not working out. because we have
these standards in our house. And that's for anyone. We had
a lot of international students stay at our house over the years.
And we put out a list of rules to them before they came and
said, these are the way it is in our home. As long as you follow
these, everything's fine. And they weren't extensive, but
they were clear. Nothing illegal, nothing immoral,
da da da da da, different things like that. So you just have to
set some standards. It's your home, so you can do
that. You're not saying that your standards are better than
somebody else's, but it's your home and these are your standards.
And they need to live by them if they're gonna stay at your
house, in my opinion. Okay, thanks Greg. Did Joshua make the same mistake
that Josiah made in not properly disciplining a protege? Did Joshua
make the same mistake that Josiah made in not properly disciplining
a protege? I'm not sure I understand. Is
that from you, John? Yeah, I meant discipling. OK. OK. Oh, it does say discipling.
I'm sorry, John. OK. I'm a pretty good guesser,
aren't I? I knew I was pretty good. How
did you know that was John's question? I just felt it in the
air. No. Wow. No, because John's a
cool guy. I like him. I talked to him.
So here's the deal. Josiah made a huge mistake. Well, you told Judah, I'm gonna
punish you now. I've put up with you guys long
enough. You've been disobedient over and over again, and now
you're gonna be punished. And then Josiah comes along as
king, and he's righteous. And God says, I'm not gonna do
it now because Josiah's a righteous man. I'll wait till afterwards.
Josiah had three or four sons. Now, if you were Josiah, And
God said, I'm gonna put off the punishment until you die because
you're righteous. What would be your first, number
one, greatest desire and motivation and goal? To get one of the sons
to be righteous. So God would continue to put
off his judgment. But three of Josiah's sons, it
says they were evil men. And his grandson, Jehoiachin,
he was also an evil man. So God brought judgment. You know, I want to say Josiah
failed. That's probably not fair to say, because just because
his sons didn't turn out godly doesn't mean he failed. He may
have been doing everything he could, but if you read the text,
I get the sense that he really worked hard at building up the
nation, and he may have ignored the most important thing he could
have done. Now, Joshua, I don't know that he, it doesn't, I don't
know that there's details about whether he tried to have someone
after him that would follow in his footsteps. He says at the
end of Joshua, you know, choose you this day whom you serve,
as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. So he's certainly
standing up before the nation and challenging them to serve
the Lord, but whether he actually mentored someone, the Bible doesn't
say. But here's something interesting.
I was reading that Peter and Paul, the two probably greatest
men in the beginning of the church, both died about the same time,
about 67 A.D. under Nero. And when I first
read that, I thought, what a blow to the church. The two greatest
apostles, and they both died, and that would have been a great
blow to the church. And then, as I kept thinking about it,
I realized, wait a second, what has Paul been doing all his life?
He's mentoring Timothy. He's mentoring Titus. He's mentoring
Luke. He mentored Mark. Mark came back
to him and he mentored Mark. He mentored Priscilla and Aquila. And I counted up the number of
people that he mentored. It was 40 people or more in the
New Testament. So when he is in heaven, whole
new generation rising up to take over. So mentor, that's what
you need to do, John. Mentor. And be a mentor. I had a mentor until just a couple
years ago. He passed away at 92 years old. Here I am in my
70s and I still had a mentor. I think it's helpful to have
someone who's a little bit ahead of you and can help you grow
spiritually. Get a mentor. Okay, Abigail. Did she take leadership
away from her husband? Boy, Abigail's a super tough
situation, isn't it? There's this woman that looks
like she was disrespectful to her husband and went behind her
husband's back to do something good. It seemed safe for her
husband, but then he ended up getting killed by God anyway.
And so she calls her husband a fool and slanders him. And
so I've seen people come down on both sides of this. I'm generally
of the persuasion that I don't think that what Abigail did was
best, even if she was trying to preserve her husband's life.
And it doesn't seem like it was God's will for Nabal's life to
be preserved since God ended up killing him. But if she was
wrong and we examine motive and situations, I think her motive
was good. And I think that she probably even slandered her husband
to save his life, right? So that's kind of my thought.
We don't, we can't, just one second, I guess we'll just say,
you know, we get these descriptive accounts and we can't make them
all prescriptive. We don't always know in narratives what's the
clear application. You use narratives to support
imperatives. What I mean is if you have an imperative in the
New Testament, or a command, an imperative is a command, you
have imperatives supported by narratives. You don't build your
theology with narratives. You don't take narratives and make
a theology from that. You have imperatives and narratives
support the theology. And so I wouldn't make a big
theological case from Abigail. I would make a big theological
case with the imperatives that we have, and that's for any theology.
Jake, go ahead. And David expressed that she
prevented him or saved him from doing something that he believed
would have really ruined his reputation, slaughtering an innocent
man. But although maybe David would
have stopped at some other point and come to his senses about
what he was gonna do. Do you have any thoughts on that, Rick, since
I don't have a clear, okay. Your question, buddy. Oh. Pastor Scott and Pastor Rick.
It's gonna roll through. You're first on that one. Okay.
Can you suggest specific things a wife might say or do to help
her husband feel respected? My husband will not tell me anything
when I ask him. Well, I can just tell you what
Katie's done. Katie is generally pretty complimentary
toward me, and I'll give you one example. We were in, I'm
not handy, I told you that earlier, right? You know, stapling my
hand. And so we had a gate behind our house that was falling over,
and I went to fix it. Now, for most men to fix this
gate would be insignificant. To me, it was one of the biggest
accomplishments of my life. So I Finished I fixed this case
that opens and closes nicely didn't didn't put any nails through
my hands or anything like that and I went in the house after
this and I just told Katie not thinking too much about it. I
Fixed that gate behind the house. I was messed up. And so she said
I She said, wow, you did, that's great. Let's go out and take
a look at it. And so she comes out with me, and we're standing
there looking at the gate. And she kind of puts her arm around
me. She goes, wow, honey, this looks really great. You did a
great job with that. And I kind of went, yeah, well. Yeah, I guess it does look
pretty good, doesn't it? That's kind of what I was thinking.
I didn't really do that. But the point is, I still remember
that because I felt respected. She encouraged me. She could
have said, well, what took you so long? Or when are you going
to fix the other things around here? How many other husbands
would have fixed that and many other things? So I don't think
it's really hard to. make a husband feel respected.
It's usually encouraging, complimenting, looking for his strengths, finding
things to applaud. And this is the truth, and I
mean this sincerely. Ladies, your husband will have
no trouble living up to or down to the bar you set for him. If
you praise your husband, you will encourage him to be a godly
man. If you criticize him, you will turn him into a little boy.
You will never be able to scrutinize your husband into being more
mature. And Katie, she does, she thinks too much of me, and
I mean this sincerely, it can almost make me emotional. Katie thinks
I am a better husband and father than I am. But when she sends
me messages or tells me that she respects me or tells me what
a good father or husband I am, which I know I'm not, I want
to rise up to be the husband that she's describing. But you
can't belittle your husband into being a better husband or father
to your children. But when you praise your husband, he will
strive to be the husband that you're describing in your messages
to him. That's kind of my answer, I don't
think it's really, men are pretty simple. Compliment us, encourage
us, say nice things to us, don't talk down to us, don't wave your
finger in our face, don't talk to us like we're little boys,
don't treat us like Michael treated David coming out and chastising
him like he's a little kid in trouble. Those are the kinds
of things that make husbands feel disrespected. What's, oh yeah, sorry brother,
go ahead. Oh, no, that was a marriage question for sure. No, it had
your name on it. I know. I agree with what you said. I
don't know any other way to make him feel respected. I think what
you said was perfect. Really. OK. For counseling singles, how
do you reconcile God saying, oh, this is good, it's not good
for a man to be alone, and Paul encouraging singleness, primarily
in first Corinthians. I don't know about Paul encouraging
singleness outside of first Corinthians, that's the only place, right?
And I get it, it's not good for a man to be alone, yet in first,
and I think one of my kids just asked me this the other day.
So context is important, it's one of the primary rules for
hermeneutics, and Paul was talking to people who are persecuted,
he even talked about singleness, or the absence of children because
of the persecution they were experiencing. But the normal
beneficial pattern for most people is marriage and children, unless
there's some unforeseen or extenuating circumstance that would prevent
that. But generally, marriage has a
very sanctifying and beneficial effect on husband. Most husbands
are going to mature through marriage. Okay, if my son Johnny has a
question, you need to answer it. I can't handle it anymore,
okay? Go ahead, Johnny. they're like in mid-30s and they're
not married, and they are in their parents' house, what would
you say about them? How long would you let them stay
in that house? With using the Bible verse about See, Johnny's thinking, okay,
by the time I'm 30-something, I'll have any room I want. Most
of the other kids will be gone. I'll have a lot of the house
to myself. This is looking very attractive. Yeah, well, first,
I wouldn't let my child use 1 Corinthians 7 to defend singleness because
that's not what's in view there unless we get suddenly very persecuted,
right? We'd have to be a very persecuted
group to use 1 Corinthians 7 in that context. And I mean, he
goes on to say if you, if you have desires physically for someone
of the opposite sex to get married. So I'd have to have a child that
believed God called him to singleness, and they didn't have a desire
for someone of the opposite sex, and So, so far I'm not aware
of any of my children being in that category, and so I would
just say that 1 Corinthians 7 doesn't apply to you. You're taking it
out of context. It's not good for a man to be alone. Johnny,
you're too old to be in the house. Get married. I'm a pastor. Let's
get this taken care of. I'll perform the wedding, and
this will be a done deal, right? Well, wait a second. I have a
little different perspective. Okay, great, brother. So I think
it all depends on the motive of the child. Do they really
want to be single to serve the Lord? or do they want to just
live off their parents? Have you ever heard the expression,
I think it's hikikomori, is that right, Diane? It's a Japanese
word that is so common now in Japan that older guys are living
with their parents, living off their parents. Like they're 35,
40, 45 years old, and they're just at home playing video games
in their room. And that's so common that they
have a saying or expression, I think it's hikikomori or something
like that. Obviously, you kick them out in that case. That's
just irresponsible. But if they really have a desire
to serve God as a single, I honor that. And I would support that,
as long as they're not just being lazy. And the fact of the matter
is, there are, now this is gonna be more controversial, okay?
There are a number of people who have homosexual desires.
What do we do with them? So we can say, you know, you
repent, and you trust God to change your desires, and then
you get married. And that would be the ideal.
But it doesn't always happen that way. And I think that, I
mean, they obviously have to say no to those desires. They
are wrong desires. They have to say no to it. But
I think it's possible that God wants them to focus on serving
him and not worrying about marriage. Obviously, you can't marry someone
of your own gender. That's sinful. But some people
are not gonna have a desire to marry someone of the opposite
gender. And I don't know all that goes
into making people the way they are, but we know there's a lot
of people in our culture today that they're in that situation.
And I would just encourage them to serve God. I would encourage
them to keep asking God to change their desires. But if he doesn't,
then they just need to serve God and don't worry about getting
married. That's what I would say. Thank you, Rick. And I kind
of, I just realized I was kind of unguarded because I'm talking
to my son. I'm kind of joking. But understanding people are
listening to me, they could extrapolate from that. Like I sound like
I kick one of my kids out when they get older, one of my sons.
And the truth, Johnny, is I really desire my kids to stay at our
home with us, unless there's a good reason for them to move
out. I mean, until they're married, I'd love to see all of you stay
at home, and I believe I've expressed that. And unless there's a circumstance
like Rick described, you know, we picture that kid in the basement
playing video games into their 30s, and so I wouldn't. Anticipate
that for for any of you but I don't want to give the impression like
I think there's something dishonorable about staying home at a young
age or as you get older because I actually think there's something
very Honorable about staying and why is associated with staying
home as you get older you can save money you might be a help
and blessing to your parents and often not always but many
times I think when Kids have gotten older and moved out besides
just to be married it might be because they don't like authority
or there might be some negative reason so I think it's very commendable
when I've seen people get older and even be in their 20s or perhaps
even older while still staying at home with their parents. So,
sorry I gave the impression I'd like kind of kick you out when
you're 30 or something. What do you think? Sleepovers. Did you guys do sleepovers?
Sleepovers. Well, yeah, we did some, depending
on the family. As you know, that even in a church
where people are pretty much in agreement, they are not always
in agreement with certain things they allow in their home. And
so we were pretty careful about that. Do you remember better
than I? We led a few sleepovers, but probably not very many, did
we? What I remember is when they would come home We put an end to that after a
while. We probably did. I don't remember real well. The
other thing is we had our kids call us if there was going to
be a movie shown. Because we wanted them to check
with us, make sure it's something we wanted them to watch. So I
remember that. Because again, parents, different
families have different standards. And we have pretty strict standards
for our kids. So that was really important
that whatever they were doing after the sleepover, they would
contact us first. So we were always there for all of them. Well said, Diana.
So we don't do sleepovers. So what my son did was he spoke right past
me to you. Hey, Pastor Rick, I'm just curious, for when I become a father, what
do you think about sleepovers? I just want to learn from you,
Pastor Rick. And I think your parents should allow you to go to a sleepover.
How do you like that? I won't be invited back here
again. Okay. When the Bible mentions the rod
about discipline, I have heard some arguments that the rod refers
to a shepherd's staff. I do not agree with this interpretation,
but what are your thoughts? Some proclaiming Christians that
I know are convinced that this is the proper interpretation.
I just disagree. I don't know what to say. I don't know if the word means
particularly shepherd staff. You see rod probably has a wider
range of meanings like almost any word does. So I suppose it
could mean that, but that doesn't mean you don't use it still for
discipline. Gil, I do have a question for
you. We've talked about this. Because it says a rod, did you
always use something or did you use your hand? Do you think because
it says rod, we shouldn't use our hand? Okay, so that, yeah,
some people take that very literally and they say, you know, if you
use your hand, then your child will associate pain with you
and it will hurt your relationship. That might be true, I don't know
that. But the reason I used my hand was that I wanted to know
how much it hurt. I didn't want to over-discipline. And with a rod, I don't really
know what that does. I just felt uncomfortable with
it, to be honest with you. But I'm not saying that I went
to the Bible and I found exactly what I should do. I just felt
using my hand, I could control how strong it was. And I did
not find any of the kids you know, looking at me and being
afraid of me or something, because I had disciplined that way. So
I don't know what to say. That's where I'm at. But I think
each person has to come up with their own convictions about that.
Because it's true that even the rod, some people say, well, that
actually just means discipline, and it may not be spanking at
all. Some people believe that, that's not what I see there,
but there is some room to disagree on that, and that's where I think
in a church, you're gonna have people that interpret certain
things a little differently, and I accept that, but that's
the interpretation I have for my family, and that's the way
we did it. Thank you, Pastor. Okay, if a wife's submission
should not be done with a bad attitude, should a husband's
sacrifice or giving up also not be done with a bad attitude?
Is it the sacrifice from the husband if it's done begrudgingly?
Conversely, if submission is permissible when fearful and
worried, is sacrifice from a husband still a godly sacrifice when
fearful and worried? There's a lot to this. Okay,
well first, Let me just say, you know, Katie will say to me,
she'll say, I don't want you to be upset with me about this
later. She wants me to have a good attitude. She doesn't want something
to happen and then me be mad about it. So let's say we're
talking about going somewhere or doing something, if it's a
trip or dinner or whatever the case, she doesn't want me to
do it and then be frustrated about it. And so, yeah, I think
whether it's a wife submitting with a good attitude or a husband
loving or cherishing or deferring with a good attitude. They're
both important. I don't think any wife wants, no wife wants
to go out to dinner with her husband when he's moaning and
groaning and grabbing his coat and saying, oh great, how much
money are we spending tonight? You know, that's, no wife's gonna
be able to enjoy that. So I think the attitude with
which we do most things in life is very, it's kind of like a
church workday. If we were having a church workday, which I think are generally
pretty enjoyable and there's some guy out here complaining
about, why do we have so many church workdays? Why do I have
to be, I'd say, hey brother, I know, you know, you can go home, right?
That's what I'd say. It's like they got a bad attitude.
Nobody wants to work around someone with a bad attitude like that.
The second part, conversely, oh, is it true sacrifice from
the husband if it's done begrudgingly? It's not always easy to give
things up. And if a guy has given up, I'll use something extreme,
the car that he has loved and worked on for countless nights,
it's going to be hard for him to do that with a good attitude.
And you might just need to be thankful that he gave up the
car. I would not expect him to do jumping jacks because he's
so excited about doing so. So even if he can manage to give
it up, and he doesn't have the best attitude, or even if, similarly,
if a wife had a shopping problem or something like that, or spends
too much money, but she submits to your budget, and she isn't
buying certain things, but she doesn't always have the best
attitude, you might just need to appreciate the best you can,
the sacrifice that's involved, and that they're still doing
it, even if they aren't doing it as joyfully or with a smiley
face that you would like. Conversely, if submission is
permissible when fearful and worried, is sacrifice from a
husband still a godly sacrifice when fearful and worried? I'm
not sure I understand that. Do you know what they're asking? I don't
know if the person who asked that wants to elaborate, not
to call anyone out. I just don't know how else to
handle it when I don't fully understand the question. Well, how would a husband love
his wife in a fearful or worried way? What does that mean? What? He's scared of her? OK. OK, I'm not sure. It's, is any
anger and discipline wrong or is there a righteous anger that
we, I think we had a lot of questions that might have hopefully covered
that. And if they didn't, if that wasn't answered, come see
Pastor Rick also. How would you counsel parents
who are worried about warning their children of potential sin
encounters? as it may spark curiosity in
the child to go seek the sin they are being warned of, particularly
with sexual temptation. We've had this conversation about
what age to introduce certain topics or what age should we
have conversations with our kids? Yeah, that may be sexual things.
What age should we educate them? That's just one example, so that's
a good question. I doubt that there's any particular age. It's
the maturity of the kid. And that's a judgment the parents
have to make. I don't know how else to say
it, because I don't think there's any line where, OK, when they
get this age, you've got to tell them this or this or this. So
I can't answer that. It's up to the parents to be
discerning, to know their child, to have a good relationship with
the child so you know where they're at, you know what they're struggling
with, and to discern when the right time is. I don't know else.
OK. All right. Thanks, Ron. Well,
that's it for the questions. And so you guys. But I would
say this, by the way. But God does warn us about all
kinds of sins in the Bible, doesn't he? So the idea that by warning
a child about a sin, you are tempting him to do it, that doesn't
quite strike me right, OK? I understand that there is something
in the sin nature that rebels against the law. So I understand
that. But by and large, I don't see
God in the Bible refraining from warning us about certain sins
because it might cause us to do it or become fascinated with
it. Do you know? Is there anything? Am I missing
something here? I can't think of anything. So there certainly
would be an age, like with the sexual stuff, when it would be
best not to introduce it too early. But don't be like me.
I waited too long. See? Because I'll guarantee you,
virtually all your sons are going to be exposed at some point in
their lives to some kind of pornography. It's going to happen. I agree
with that. And so you really need, I mean, I've counseled
a lot of guys on this area. And some of them are pretty young.
They get it from their friends, and they get it from the phone,
and they even get it without trying on the phone. You know,
you get stuff coming in. I get stuff I can't believe the
stuff I get. I haven't asked for it, you know,
it just comes at me. Stuff that's, at least it would
be considered pornography. you know, some years back, today
maybe they don't consider it that, but still, you gotta get
ahead of the curve here and really work with your guys especially,
but girls too, and help them to understand God's standards
and the reasons for God's standards too. Like when I'm counseling
an engaged couple, I try to make it real clear to them, this is
gonna be hard. Engagement's a hard thing. There's
gonna be sexual temptations. And you need to set some standards. In fact, that's what Diane and
I do when we do counseling with engaged couples. We tell them,
we want you to set up some standards of what your physical relationship
is gonna be during your engagement time. And you know, don't, you
know, when you're, out on a date and things get passionate, don't
try to set the standard then. That's not going to work. You
set the standard, write it out, and then on your wedding night,
burn it. That's what we tell them. All
right. That's good. That's good. And in fact, that's what Diane
and I did, didn't we? We burned our standards and then... I won't say anymore. That's enough. We'll just stop right there,
brother. We're glad to know you did that,
but that's enough detail. Just kidding. OK. Well, I think that's it. But
I'll be around if there's any questions. Will you be around
a bit, Pastor Rick? Sure. Glad to be around. Oh, and if you want books or
anything, I think maybe Katie will be over there, or Pastor
Rick's books, make sure you secure those, and I'll be around, the
two of us will be around if there's any more questions. We wanted
to get you guys out of here at a good time, so thanks for a
wonderful day. I really enjoyed this with all of you. Pastor
Rick, thank you very much for coming. Oh, thank you, yeah. Great, thank
you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate the way you're using
your retired, I'm using the word retired loosely, years to continue
serving and ministering. I don't tell people I'm retired,
I say I'm redeployed. Redeployed, okay. I am redeployed. Well, you've been redeployed
here a few times, we appreciate it. You wanna close us in prayer,
brother? Sure, glad to. Father, thank you for this day. I've learned a lot today, this
has been really good. And we thank you for the opportunity
we have to share with each other what we're learning and to ask
these questions Lord, you know that Pastor Scott and I feel
very inadequate, but we're here depending on you. And we're thankful,
Lord, for your guidance. We thank you for the scriptures.
Thank you for the wisdom you show us in your word. And like
it says in Psalm 119, 18, open my eyes that I may see wonderful
things in your law. I pray that you will help us
to see your word, the wisdom that's there, and how we can
best use it in our marriages and in our parenting. In Jesus'
name, amen. Amen. All right, God bless you
guys. You're dismissed, thank you.
Family Life Conference Q&A
Series Family Life Conference
| Sermon ID | 113241731314154 |
| Date | |
| Category | Conference |
| Language | English |
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